Firudin bey Kocharli

Firudin bey Ahmad bey oglu Kocharli or Kocharlinski (Azeri: "Firudin bəy Köçərli"; Russian: Фирудин-бек Кочарлинский or Кочарли) (26 January 1863, Shusha – 1920, Ganja) was a prominent Azerbaijani writer, philologist and literary critic.

Life

Kocharli was born in 1863 in Shusha being the only child of Ahmad bey Kocharli. Firudin graduated from the local Russian-Muslim school and was admitted to the Transcaucasian Teachers Seminary in Gori. Upon receiving his diploma in 1885, he started teaching Azeri and religion at a Russian-Muslim school in Erivan.az icon [http://azerilobbi.com/ders/firudunbeykocherli.html Literaty Criticism] by Shams Rufullayeva] In 1895 he was invited back to Gori to teach in his "alma mater".ru icon [http://www.azerizv.az/article.php?id=13607&print=1 Firudin bey Kocharli: National Teacher and Outstanding Philologist] by Galina Mikeladze. "Azerbaijanskie Izvestia"]

He was one of the first Azeri literati to raise questions about standards for the written Azeri language. In 1895 he wrote his first article "Tatar Comedies" ("Tatar" was a common Russian name for Azeris before 1920), followed by "Essays on Our Literature" (1904). In 1903 he published his first academic work entitled "Literature of the Azerbaijani Tatars", a critical piece that contains information on 130 Azeri writers and poets. In the following years he published some smaller works like "Mirza Fatali Akhundov" (1911) and "Gift to Children" (1912). Kocharli also translated works of European, mostly Russian authors into Azeri. His major academic work is "Topics on the History of Azerbaijani Literature", which was published only in 1925, five years following his death. It was the first successful attempt to compile scientific data on the history and development of Azerbaijani literature.

In 1917–1918 he was member of the Azerbaijani National Council. In 1918–1920 Kocharli was elected to the Parliament of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.

Kocharli was killed in spring 1920, amid the Soviet incursion in independent Azerbaijan. During the political turmoil he was arrested, extradited to Ganja and killed without trial. At the time of his death, Kocharli was Principal of the Gazakh Teachers Seminary that was founded in 1918 at his request.

He was married to Badisabah Kocharli, née Vakilova, a Gazakh-native teacher who later worked in Baku, Zagatala and Shaki.

Heritage

In the Soviet era, Kocharli's works remained largely unknown due to his political affiliation with the anti-Communist Musavat Party. It was not until 1957 when Bakir Nabiyev, a graduate student in the Azerbaijan State University, started researching the heritage of Kocharli accessing archives and interviewing some of his surviving colleagues and students. In 1960 Nabiyev published the first monograph dedicated to the contributions of Kocharli into scientific literature.

References