Socio-Political and Cultural Environment of Azerbaijan Press in the End of XIX – the Beginning of XX Century

The article discusses the historical conditions for formation of the Azerbaijan press, which conveyed to the people the socio-political problems of the Caucasus and the East, emanating from religious fanaticism, alienation of the Muslim society from science and education, lawlessness, caused by ignorance. The research method was historical one aimed at studying the specific circumstances of formation of conditions for printing the Azerbaijan press. In particular, these processes that took place in the society in the last decades of the 19th century were the unchanging model of tough imperial policy, and the mass illiteracy of the people. The issues of need to create the pro-gymnasiums for the Muslim community and the efforts of our intelligentsia to conduct the classes in their native language in the schools were touched in the newspapers. Jalil Mamedguluzadeh, the magazine editor was convinced that the magazine «Molla Nasreddin» was created by «nature and time itself» that showed the determining role of the social, political and cultural environment in creation of the Azerbaijan press. The main goal of the press at that time was to appeal to every representative of the Azerbaijan people to find the reserves that were hidden in the public consciousness, related to the real world, but that were not realized. During that specified period, the Azerbaijanis did not have any national school, national organization, or even an ordinary charitable society in the region. However, other nations had daily newspapers, weekly magazines, national secondary schools, charitable societies, banks, various scientific and public publications in their native languages. That was the situation of the Turko-Muslim population in the Caucasus. Therefore it was unthinkable for the society in that situation to have any goals related to national development.