Educational Institutions Opened by Tsarist Russia in Azerbaijan in the XIXth Century within the Framework of Russification and Assimilation Policy

Azerbaijan, which fell under the occupation of Tsarist Russia at the beginning of the XIX century, faced the Russification and assimilation policy of the administration in cultural terms as well as being exploited in other areas. The Tsarist government tried to tear Azerbaijani Turks away from their past and aimed to assimilate them completely as an ultimate goal. The primary way of this was to raise loyal subjects in the region. In this context, the administration first tried to attract the nobles of the region and implemented a social engineering programme by providing Russian education to their children. For the implementation of this policy, the government considered it important to open state schools. Therefore, the administration started to establish state schools with the aim of Russification and assimilation of the people. The aim of this study is to determine that Tsarist Russia opened state schools in Azerbaijan in the XIX century with the aim of Russification and assimilation of the population. In this context, document analysis, which is a qualitative research method, was used in the study. During the study, the published archival documents containing the laws of the Tsarist administration were reviewed, the news of the Kavkaz newspaper on the subject and the Caucasus Calendar published every year were examined, as well as the information in first and second-hand sources were evaluated and used during the writing.