Ahmet Ağaoğlu

Ahmet Ağaoğlu, born in December eighteen sixty-nine, was a prominent political figure and intellectual in both Azerbaijan and Turkey. He was a multifaceted individual, serving as a politician, journalist, writer, university teacher, and Turkologist. His contributions to liberal Kemalism marked him as a significant thinker of his time.

After completing his studies in France, Ağaoğlu returned to his homeland and established the first library and reading room in Shusha in eighteen ninety-six. The following year, he moved to Baku at the invitation of H. Z. Taghiyev, where he began writing for the Kaspi newspaper. His editorial prowess was evident as he collaborated with A. Huseynzade on the Hayat newspaper and took on the role of chief editor for several notable publications, including Irshad, Taraqqi, Progres, Tercüman-ı Hakikat, Hakimiyet-i Milliye, and Akın.

In nineteen oh five, he took a bold step by secretly founding the Muslim Difai Party to oppose the Tsarist regime and the Dashnaks. His activism led to persecution, forcing him to live in secrecy for months. To evade arrest, he relocated to Istanbul in late nineteen oh eight, where he became a key figure in the Turkish Hearths national movement and was elected president of a congress organized by the movement. He later joined the Young Turks' Committee of Union and Progress, while also serving as the director of a library in Suleymaniye and teaching Turkic-Mongol history and Russian language at Istanbul University.

In nineteen eighteen, Ağaoğlu served as a political advisor to the commander of the Islamic Army of the Caucasus, which supported the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. He was elected as a member of the Parliament from the Zangezur district on December twenty-six, nineteen eighteen, although he later declined the position. He was part of the delegation representing the Republic at the Paris Peace Conference but was arrested upon his return to Istanbul and exiled to Malta along with other leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress.

Upon his return from exile, Ağaoğlu took charge of the Press Information Office in Ankara and became the chief editor of the Hakimiyet-i Milliye newspaper. He was elected to the second and third terms of the Turkish Grand National Assembly and served as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's political advisor on foreign affairs. In May two thousand nineteen, the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan recognized his literary contributions by declaring his works state property.