FROM AZERI INTO RUSSIAN…

If you ask any Azerbaijani "Who was Uzeyir Hacibayov?" the answer is simple: "A composer and the founder of Azerbaijani classical music." And that would be correct. But few of us are aware that before the presentation of his immortal opera "Leyli and Mejnun" [Macnun] the celebrated composer Uzeyir Hacibayov published Azeri-Russian and Russian-Azeri dictionaries. This was in 1907, when the 21-year old author was a journalist on the "Irsad" newspaper. The full title of Hacibayov's work was "Russian-Tatar and Tatar-Russian dictionary of political, legal, military and other terms used in the press." One thing should be clarified here. As can be seen from the title in Russian, the native language was described by the author as "Tatar". That was common practice in Russia - our language was called "Tatar", and we were called "Caucasian Tatars". However, on the cover in the Azeri language the author replaced the word "Tatar" with "Turkic".

The publisher of the dictionary was another "Irsad" journalist, Mammadamin Rasulzada. Hacibayov's work, which was published over 100 years ago, was until recently unknown even to a narrow circle of experts, not to mention the public at large. Recently, through the efforts of an employee at the Political Documents Archive of the Azerbaijani president's administration, Dr. Phil. and a young specialist in oriental studies, Sahla Abdullayeva, who voluntarily took upon the job of transliteration, Hacibayov's "Dictionary" was re-born.

Without doubt, the appearance of the "Dictionary" was an important event of the social and cultural life of the Baku governate at the beginning of the last century. After the October manifesto of Emperor Nicholas II in 1905 a breath of freedom blew through Russia. Some time had passed since the closure of Hasan bay Zardabi's "Akinci". However, after the manifesto, newspapers in the Azeri language started to be published. They obtained official information from the agencies and press of St. Petersburg, which published not only local but also foreign news. Here problems arose over the translation into Azeri of texts which mostly contained unfamiliar words.

Hacibayov's "Dictionary" was also favourably received by a small group of Azerbaijani students who had been educated in grammar schools, non-secondary schools and technical colleges in Baku, where teaching was carried out in Russian. Incidentally, apart from Uzeyir, Russian-Azeri and Azeri-Russian dictionaries were also compiled at the beginning of the last century by the teacher S.M. Hanizada and Dr K. Qarabayov.
It should be said that these dictionaries are still vital today. After independence, there was huge interest in the recent history of the country and the people. Dust was shaken off documents which had "languished" in the archives for years. Working with these dictionaries by Hacibayov and other authors uncovers a unique source of information. 

In his "Dictionary" Hacibayov did not confine himself just to the translation of words. The dictionary may quite rightly be described as an explanatory dictionary. The second section of the book provides a translation of Azeri words into Russian. In most cases these words are new to the Azerbaijani reader. Taking this into consideration, Hacibayov provides explanations of many new words. At the same time, it is extremely interesting how he explains to the reader in a unique yet accessible way in simple language the meaning of a word.

For example, the author explains the meaning of the word "konservator" ["conservative"]. According to Hacibayov, he is a "person who strives to maintain existing procedures, excluding anything new". And alongside that: "wishing to preserve old methods of state rule".

A long article is devoted to the word "boykot" ["boycott"]. "This is the name of a person in the state of Ireland whom a well-known party excluded from its ranks. Since then the word "boycott" has come to mean a means of criticizing someone. "'Boycott' means that everyone breaks off all communication with a person who has caused harm to society in general or to an organization, and is not welcome anywhere. If the guilty person is a merchant, then everyone is told about it and the culprit is alienated from his customers". 

In Uzeyir Hacibayov's dictionary you may find the translation of many words that were widely used at the beginning of the last century (august, assessor, viceroy, policeman, city hall, administrative board of a city), words which have long gone out of use in contemporary Russian language (актуариус, апеллятор, стратагема, подесятинный налог, подымная подать, купчая крепость), as well as military terms which have entered contemporary Azeri language (battalion, battery, brigade, platoon, guardhouse). Here you can find the translation and meaning of a number of completely new terms such as volunteer and municipality. The dictionary also supplies Azeri words which, the author feels, are difficult to interpret.