Western Azerbaijan Community
Mirza Mammadvali Gamarlinski was born in 1871. Mirza Mammadvali Gamarlinski was one of the educators who had special services in the development of education in Iravan. His father, Ali Gamarlinski, was a general of the tsarist army, and his eldest son Husueyneli Gamarli, who emigrated to Turkey in 1915, was a general of the Turkish army. His second son, Ali, graduated from Gori teachers’ seminary, and his other children, Pasha, Adil and Mahmud, worked as teachers after graduating from gymnasium. Mammadvali Gamarlinski himself graduated from the Russian-Tatar school in Iravan in 1898, and in March 1900 he passed the exam at the Iravan gubernatorial assembly and earned the title of teacher. He was a teacher of the Russian-Tatar school in Iravan in 1901–1911. The book “Proverbs” written by him was published in 1889 at the “Edilson” printing house in Iravan. One of the authors of the “Mother Tongue” textbook published in 1907, 1908 and 1911 was Mirza Mammadvali Gamarlinski.
When Mirza Mammadvali participated in the teachers’ congress held in Baku in 1906, Nariman Narimanov introduced him to Mirza Alakbar Sabir, as one of the outstanding educators of Iravan Chukhur, and informed the poet about the existing schools in Iravan. Mahmud Gamarli’s article about his father, entitled “From my father’s memories”, describes that incident with his father’s words: “The late Sabir’s eyes were filled with tears of joy. I invited Sabir to visit Iravan. But we were both in the same situation. N. Narimanov paid our Iravan expenses. After the congress ended, we went to Iravan. When the late Sabir met with Hashim bey Narimanbeyov, Hamid bey Shahtakhtinsky, Sultanov, Gaziyevs and others, he said: “Mirza, these teachers, schools, teaching methods of yours, especially the Muslim girls’ school, fascinated me. We can be sure that our nation will be in the forefront in the near future.”