Ahmet Ağaoğlu
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Ahmet Agaoglu (Turkish: Ahmet Ağaoğlu), also known as Ahmed-bey Aghayev (Azerbaijani: Əhməd-bəy Ağayev) - (1869-1939) was a prominent Azerbaijani and Turkish publicist and journalist. He is revered in Turkey as one of the founding ideologists of Turkism.
According to Holly Shissler, "Ahmed Agaoglu was born in the city of Shusha in the Karabakh region of Russian-controlled Azerbaijan in 1869"[1]. His father Mirza Hassan was a wealthy cotton farm owner of Kurteli tribe, and his mother, Taze khanim, was of the semi-nomadic Sariji Ali tribe [2].
In 1888, he arrived in Paris and came under the influence of French Orientalists like Ernest Renan and Professor James Darmesteter on Persiano-centricism. He was a well-educated person of his time, who had graduated from the Universities in Saint Petersburg and the Sorbonne University in Paris. He was also a famous journalist, who spoke fluently in five languages and therefore, wrote articles on current affairs for many popular newspapers in the country and abroad.
He returned to the Caucasus in 1894 teaching French, to then leave for Baku to contribute in the formation of a national identity. He wrote monographs in various subjects. It was during that period that he took a different position than the French Orientalists he was influenced from and began embracing Turkish identity.
Ahmed bey Agaoglu considered the cultural and educational progress to be the major provision for the national liberation. He viewed the emancipation of women as part of this struggle. Thus, Agaoglu was the first member of the Azeri national intelligentsia to raise his voice for the equal rights for women. In his book "Woman in the Islamic World" published in 1901, he proved that "without women liberated, there can be no national progress".
Agaoglu was chosen from Baku as one of the represents of the Muslims of Trancaucasia and played an important role in prevention of ethnic clashes between Armenians and Azeris in 1905. Along with Nasib-bey Yusifbeyli, Agaoglu became a founder of "Difai" (Defender) National Committee in Ganja, which in 1917 merged with the Turkic Party of Federalists and Musavat into a single party.
Fleeing police persecution and possible imprisonment, in late 1908, during the Young Turk revolution in Ottoman Empire, Agaoglu moved to Istanbul [3]. He played a role with other émigrés like Yusuf Akçura and Hüseyinzade Ali as Pan-Turkist Journalist-ideologists, and became a key figure in the Turkish movement led by Akçura’s journal Turk Yurdu (Turkish Homeland) and a primary figure in Turkish Hearth (Turk Ocagi) movement and the president of its congress. After having his influence increased in the Nationalistic Ittihadist regime, in late 1915, he became a deputy and was a strong adherent of Pan-Turkism and the Ottoman expansion policies to unite all Turkic nations.
In 1918, upon the established of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Agaoglu returned to Azerbaijan. He took up Azerbaijani citizenship, was elected to the Parliament (Milli Mejlis) and was chosen to represent ADR at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. This mission was not carried out, however, due to his imprisonment by the British in 1919 [3].
After the Soviet take over, Ahmed bey Agaoglu had to leave the country. He moved to Ankara, Turkey and continued his journalistic and political activities there, working as the director of the press bureau, the editor-in-chief of the official newspaper "Hakimiyyeti-Milliyye" ('People's Power'), and as a close advisor of Atatürk,- the founder of the modern Turkish Republic.
Agaoglu died in 1939 in Turkey.
