Pedagogical Ideas and Textbooks of Mirza Sadiq Fani

Santrauka

Mirza Sadiq Fani (1840–?), who lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, not only taught the Azerbaijani language in primary classes in Tabriz and Ganja for many years, but also authored valuable textbooks on this subject. His poems entitled “Aghil, Bakht va Dowlat” (“Wisdom, Fortune and State”) and “Hekayati-Amiri-Balkh va Eshqi-Pak” (“The Story of the Emir of Balkh and Pure Love”), preserved in the Institute of Manuscripts named after M. Fuzuli of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, together with selected samples of his poetry, his textbook “Daftari-dovvomi-adabiyya” published in 1893, as well as his manuscript textbooks related to the teaching of the Azerbaijani language, constitute important materials that make it possible to examine his pedagogical activity and educational views. Unfortunately, this topic has not yet been studied comprehensively and systematically. In the article, Mirza Sadiq Fani’s ideas and reflections as a pedagogue are carefully examined; his textbooks are analyzed and evaluated; certain facts related to them are clarified; and some erroneous views are refuted on the basis of well-founded arguments. The study concludes that the textbooks written by Mirza Sadiq Fani for primary classes in the Azerbaijani language possess distinctive positive qualities from both scientific-theoretical and methodological perspectives.