Zeynalabdin Taghiyev - Philanthropic Work

Philanthropic Work

Despite the decades of anti-bourgeois Soviet propaganda that followed his lifetime, Taghiyev is revered by Azeris for his charity work. He sponsored the construction of the first Azeri national theatre in 1883 (known as Taghiyev's Theatre, and later the Azerbaijan State Theatre of Musical Comedy) and helped to repair it after reactionists burned it down in 1909. In 1911, he covered all the expenses for the construction of what would later become the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

Taghiyev provided 184,000 roubles to build the first secular Muslim school for girls in the Middle East in 1898–1900. He personally obtained the permission to build the school in his correspondence with Empress Alexandra. He also sponsored the construction of a school of agriculture in Mardakan in 1894 and the first technical school in the Baku Governorate in 1911. Taghiyev helped to maintain many city institutions and contributed to the adornment of Baku, including laying out of parks and paving the streets. For this, he provided a 35-year loan of 750,000 roubles to the City Council in 1895. Together with five other businessmen, he financially assisted in establishing the horse tramway in Baku, which started functioning in 1892.

He helped to solve the water crisis in the city by helping to finance the Shollar water pipeline, which channeled water 100 miles away in the Caucasus Mountains, near Quba, via a ceramic pipeline. Taghiyev allocated 25,000 roubles to have the project completed. The construction of the water pipeline was finished by 1916. In 1886 Taghiyev sponsored the establishment of a fire department in Baku.

He provided scholarships for many Azeri youths who strived for higher education in prestigiuous Russian and European universities. Some of them, such as writer Mammed Said Ordubadi, politicians Nariman Narimanov and Aziz Aliyev, professor Khudadat bey Malik-Aslanov, and opera singer Shovkat Mammadova, later rose to prominence. Though illiterate himself, Taghiyev was a proponent of academic enlightenment for the young generations of Azeris. While the clergy created obstacles for the publishing of secularism-oriented literature such as that by Seyid Azim Shirvani, Taghiyev would assist in getting it printed in his private publishing house in Tehran.

As a devout Muslim, Taghiyev was in favour of translating the Koran into Azeri. This was vehemently opposed by the local clergy who believed the content of Koran was holy and of divine origin and therefore, no one had the right to translate it. Taghiyev then sent a mullah envoy to Baghdad who came back with an official permission from a board of Muslim scholars to translate the Koran. Taghiyev ordered the necessary equipment from Leipzig and sponsored the translation and the publishing.

Taghiyev also allocated 11,000 roubles for the construction of the head office for the Muslim Benevolent Society in Saint Petersburg; 3,000 roubles for the education of Armenian orphans; 5,000 for the St. Nina's School for Girls in Baku; 10,000 roubles for the construction of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Baku; tens of thousands of roubles for the construction and repair of mosques and madrasas throughout Russia and Persia., etc.

For his outstanding contributions, Taghiyev was twice-awarded with the Order of Saint Stanislaus, as well as with a number of other orders and medals from both Russia and abroad.