Aivazov, Asan Sabri

Born May 6, 1878 in Alupka in a poor peasant family. In 1889, after graduating from the Alupka elementary school, one of the relatives took the teenager to Istanbul, where Asan in 1892-1896. He studied at the Pedagogical Institute in Istanbul ^[2] . During his studies in Turkey he published articles in the newspaper of Ismail Gasprinsky " Terdzhiman ", the press of Istanbul and Baku ^[1] .

On suspicion, the Turkish police together with other students were arrested, but when the police learned that he was a Russian citizen, he was sent to Russia ^[2] .

After returning to the Crimea, he opened a new school in Alupka, where he accepted not only boys, but also girls, taught them arithmetic, geography, grammar, and Tatar language. The initiative to create these progressively educational schools ( mektebe-usul-jedid ) belonged to Ismail Gasprinsky ^[3] . In ordinary Tatar schools, girls were not allowed to write, and learning was limited to teaching the Koran in Arabic. The conditions for educational work were extremely difficult. Not only the local rich and Muslim clergy, but also the police and the public school inspection were against the new school. Aivazov was threatened, and in the summer of 1904 his house was attacked ^[2] . After this incident, Asan Sabri was forced to give up teaching ^[3] .

By this time, Aivazov was already a member of the underground society "Nejat", founded in 1898 in Alupka by Hassan Nuri. The ultimate goal of Nejat was to create in the Crimea an independent neutral republic like Switzerland under the auspices of the European great powers. The chairman was Hassan Nuri himself, the secretary was Ayvazov. After the death of Hassan Nuri (1903), Ayvazov headed the “Nejat” and led it until the end of 1906 - the beginning of 1907, when the society was crushed by the police. The body of "Nejat" was the newspaper "Vatan Hadimi" (Servant of the Fatherland), published four times a week in the city of Karasubazar . The newspaper was run by Aivazov and a young Crimean-Tatar politician Abdureshid Mediev (both were members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party). Under the influence of "Vatan Hadimi", schools ( rushdie ) were opened in cities and large villages of the Crimea, in which Tatars who were mainly educated in Turkey or Turkish teachers invited from Istanbul taught in ^[2] .

After the onset of the reaction (1907), the newspaper “Vatan Khadimi” and many ruins were closed, some of the teachers were suspended from work, and some were sent out of the Tauride province . Among those expelled at the end of 1907 was Aivazov ^[2] who was accused of agitating among the soldiers against tsarism. In early 1908, he went to Egypt, where he was treated for asthma. In 1909 he returned to Moscow, gave private lessons and attended lectures at the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages. According to Aivazov, during this period he “was arrested three times, and in 1911 he went to Switzerland, where he accidentally met in Basel with Comrade Lenin. He returned through Constantinople to Russia and lived in Moscow ” ^[2] .

During his trips to Turkey, Ayvazov communicates with prominent figures of the Pan-Turkic movement: Yusuf Akchurin, Mehmet Emin, Ali Bek Gusein-Zade, Abdullah Subhi. In Turkey, together with them, he participates in the creation of the organization “Turk Dernegi”, which subsequently grew considerably and under the name “Turk Ojagy” became one of the largest branches of the Ittihat ve Teraki party ^[3] .

By the end of 1913, after celebrating the three hundred years of the Romanovs' house, Ayvazov came under amnesty, in connection with which he was allowed to return to Crimea and settle in Bakhchisarai , where he lived until the February 1917 revolution , editing the Terdzhiman ^{[2] [1]} .

After the February Revolution, Aivazov was elected a member of the Provisional Muslim Revolutionary Committee and sent to Petrograd to work in the Muslim Bureau for the preparation of the All-Russian Muslim Congress. During his absence in the Crimea, the All-Crimean Muslim Congress was held, which on March 25, 1917 elected the Crimean Muslim Central Executive Committee (Ayvazov was elected by correspondence). Returning to Crimea in late April, Aivazov, in his words, “stayed in the shadow” of the new leaders, Chelebi Chelebiev and Dzhafer Seydamet ^[2] .

Aivazov was commissioned to organize a printing house in Simferopol and create a newspaper. When the printing house was ready, the committee approved his candidacy as editor, and gave the newspaper the name “Millet” (“Nation”). The editor-in-chief of Millet was Jafer Seydamet. On May 10-15, 1917, Aivazov was one of the Crimean delegates to the All-Russian Muslim Congress in Moscow, who, in his words, became "the father of all the Turk-Tatar nationalist organizations or parties of Russia." Upon their return from Moscow, Jafer Seidamet and Chelebi Chelebiev set about organizing the nationalist party Milli-Firka , whose program was adopted at a congress in early November 1917 ^[2] .

Aivazov was twice elected Chairman of the Kurultai (January and May 1918), Ambassador of the Crimean Regional Government in Turkey.

After the Soviet government was established in Crimea , Aivazov worked in the CEC Translation Department, since 1922, as a senior assistant at the Crimean University, he has been teaching Arabic and Turkish at the Pedagogical Institute. Supporter of the translation of the native language into Latin.

In 1926–1927 he published many articles on linguistics in the newspaper Yeni Dunya, the magazines Ileri and Ok'uv Ishleri. For some time he edited a children's magazine in Latin "Koz-Aidyn".

In 1930, Aivazov was arrested, but was released two months later. Instead of a court bench, he is sent for treatment in Kislovodsk. From later documents it becomes clear what happened in the investigative offices of the Crimean GPU.

As the most active participant in the national movement, according to counterintelligence officers, Ayvazov could become a valuable source of information about the mood of the Crimean Tatar intelligentsia. After the conclusion, being in the most difficult conditions, Ayvazov agrees to cooperate with the organs of the OGPU.

In 1959, at the additional investigation in Simferopol, the wife of Asana Ayvazova - Olga Vasilievna recalled:

Seven years later, on April 5, 1937, he was arrested again. On December 27, 1937, while being again in custody, Asan Ayvazov told the investigator that he had been a secret agent of the NKVD bodies since 1930. According to the interrogation protocol, Aivazov confessed that “I really was an agent of the NKVD, I was engaged in double-dealing [...], hiding information about the anti-Soviet activities of others I know” ^[4] .

Shot on April 17, 1938. On January 21, 1960, the definition of the military collegium of the USSR Supreme Court was found to be innocent.

• Gulnara Bekirova. Asan Sabri Aivazov (Unsolved) . Crimea. Realia (November 26, 2015). The appeal date is January 24, 2019.