Description

This is the first modern book in geography in Azeri language, written by a pioneer of the 20^th century Azeri education Gafur Rashad Alakbar (Mirzazade).

Gafur Rashad Alakbar (1884-1943) was born in a poor family and received high school education through a sponsor. Due to lack of funding he was forced to quit his education and work as a teacher. Curious and self-educated from many contemporary books and magazines, Alakbar upgraded his knowledge and authored a series of Azeri pioneering educational books, mostly on geography, many of which were used for the following decades. He was also a founder of widely popular children’s magazine Məktəb (School).

Gafur Rashad Alakbar’s work represent the foundation for the modern Azeri school system.

Alakbar’s modern pedagogical approach, mostly in teaching geography, replaced the old, 18^th century system, where students had to learn names and dates in established order, without any connotation. He was also an early supporter of the changes of written Azeri, which would approach it more to the spoken language of the area.

Gafur Rashad Alakbar’s words on the goals of his teaching methods, applying a critical approach, were:

Today’s geography, unlike the geography of the past, does not consist of memorizing inanimate names and long numbers in students. The geography of today is the geography of judgments, observations, judgments, judgments that imitate the spirit of the students and attract them.

It appears, that two versions of this book were published in the same year, differing slightly in the design of the title page. The other version dates the book in 1328 and 1910.

We could not find any institutional examples.