Western Azerbaijan Community
Hashim Bey Narimanbeyov was born in 1859. Hashim bey Nariman bey oglu Narimanbeyov, who graduated from the Transcaucasian (Gori) Teachers’ Seminary in 1882, opened a Russian-Tatar (Azerbaijani) school in Iravan on October 21, 1896. For the first time, instead of 70 students, 110 students were admitted to the school. The curriculum of the School, approved by the Russian Ministry of Public Education, included Azerbaijani, Russian, Persian, Arabic languages, Sharia and arithmetic. The commission that established the Russian-Tatar (Azerbaijan) school included Abbasgulu Khan Iravanski (chairman), Ismayil Bey Shafibeyov, the Azerbaijani language teacher of the Iravan Gymnasium, Rahim Khalilov, the Azerbaijani language teacher of the Iravan Teachers’ Seminary, and others. Iravan intellectuals often helped the school. City theater lovers often staged performances and donated the collected funds to the Russian-Azerbaijani school. The Iravan governorate mosque also provided financial support to the school.
In 1899, on the initiative of H.Narimanbeyov, evening courses for elderly Muslims were opened at his school. Russian language, arithmetic, and azerbaijani lessons were held there. H.Narimanbeyov taught the Russian language and arithmetic, and Mirza Mammadvali Gamarlinski taught the Azerbaijani language.
In the “Memorial Book of Iravan Governorate for 1906” it is stated that the patron of the Russo-Tatar primary school is Abbasgulu Khan Iravanski, its principal is Hashim Bey Narimanbeyov, its teachers are Hamid Agha Shahtakhtinsky, Mustafa Rajabov, and Sharia teachers are Mammad Gaziyev and Mirza Mammadvali Gamarlinski. In the 1914 edition of that series, it was shown that Hashim Bey Narimanbeyov was the principal of the two-year Russian-Tatar boys’ primary school in Iravan, Yevsyukov, Mammadvali Gamarlinski and Vasiliev were the teachers, and Akhund Abdulla Gaziyev was the sharia teacher.
In the first years of the Soviet rule, the school named after Mashadi Azizbeyov, which operated on the basis of the former Hashim Bey Narimanbeyov’s school in Iravan, was called Hashim Bey’s school by the people of Iravan.