I want you to imagine, just for a second, the
city of Baku at the dawn of the 20th century.
Oh, yeah. It was such a wildly transitional time.
Right. Picture the bustling streets, the sudden
and just immense change sweeping through the
region. You have this incredible oil wealth.
I mean, mansions are basically being built overnight.
Right next to just stark. grinding inequality.
Exactly, rubbing shoulders with it. It's a place
and a time where the future is being written,
but you know, not everyone has a pen. So today,
we're doing a deep dive into a really fascinating
stack of historical sources, including curated
archives from Wikipedia, to uncover the story
of a group that decided to change that reality.
Yeah, the Safa Society. The Safa Society. And
they are, without a doubt, one of the most remarkably
influential charitable organizations you've probably
never heard of. They operated in Baku from 1910
to 1917. Pretty short window, really. Super short.
But our mission today is to figure out how a
tiny grassroots group of just 50 people managed
to weave together education, health care, and
theater to, well, to dramatically uplift their
entire society. OK, let's unpack this. 50 people.
It's nothing. If you look around a crowded coffee
shop today, you're looking at more than 50 people.
How does a group that small even begin to tackle
systemic societal failure? It really is an astonishingly
small number when you look at the sheer scale
of their ambition. We're talking about 50 individuals
who looked at the massive gaps in early 20th
century Baku. The lack of schooling, right? The
lack of schooling for the poor, the total absence
of basic health care, and they just decided to
personally step into that void. They didn't wait
for the imperial government to fix it. They just
did it. Yeah, they established a core three -pronged
mission. They wanted to educate the impoverished
youth, provide direct medical assistance, and
radically elevate the public's cultural level.
Which sounds incredibly noble, but also, I mean,
incredibly daunting. If you and 49 of your friends
decided today to fix your city's education and
health care systems, where would you even start?
Right. That's not like today. No, they couldn't
just launch an app or, you know, set up a GoFundMe.
They needed a physical anchor. Exactly. Yeah.
And what's fascinating here is the level of extreme
personal investment from the very beginning.
This wasn't the kind of philanthropy where some
wealthy oil baron signs a check at a gala and
walks away. Like we see so often. Right. The
society's treasurer. A local intellectual named
Ali Bala Zarbalyev, he literally built their
two -story headquarters out of his own pocket
in 1910. Out of his own pocket? Yes. It was located
on Boyuk Chumberkin Street. He didn't just manage
the society's ledger. He financed and oversaw
the construction of the very walls where this
movement would grow. Wait, let me pause you there.
A treasurer who personally builds the headquarters,
that completely changes the dynamic of an organization.
Oh, entirely. When the person balancing the books
is the same person who poured the foundation,
you are dealing with a level of hands -on, hyper
-local dedication that is just rare. It's almost
like a civic immune system kicking in. The community
was sick with inequality, and these 50 people
were the antibodies. That is a great way to look
at it. And because they had that dedicated physical
space, they could attract the absolute best minds
to their cause. They had a hub. Right. They didn't
just staff the school with anyone willing to
volunteer. They brought in heavy hitters. You
had figures like Hussein Javid, Sayed Hussein,
and Samad Mansour teaching in those classrooms.
So for those of us who might not be steeped in
early 20th century Azerbaijani history, just
How big of a deal were those names? Oh, huge.
I mean, think of Hussein Javid, for example,
as a leading literary giant of the era. He was
a pioneering playwright and poet. Wow. Yeah.
Having him teach at your local charity school
would be like having a world renowned playwright
today quietly teaching middle school English
to underprivileged kids in your neighborhood.
It provided an incredibly high standard of education
to children who, just a year prior, had absolutely
no access to the classroom. And the demand must
have been overwhelming. The records show the
school started with 60 students, and by 1914,
just four years later, they had expanded to 160
students. Which is substantial for a single building.
It is, but I have to push back a little here.
160 Kids is a fantastic achievement for a small
charity. But Baku was a rapidly expanding industrial
hub. Is 160 Kids really enough to shift the culture
of entire society? It feels like a geographic
bottleneck. You've hit on the exact logistical
wall they ran into. A single two -story building
in the city center can only hold so many desks.
Right. If they wanted to make a systemic difference,
they couldn't just wait for the rural poor to
come to Baku. They had to push their resources
outward, directly into the margins. Over the
people. Exactly. Once they hit capacity at the
headquarters, they began opening what were called
Russian Tatar schools in the surrounding villages.
OK, let's clarify that term, Russian Tatar, because
the terminology of the Russian Empire can be
confusing. What exactly did that mean for the
students in these villages? Right. Good point.
At the time, the Russian imperial authorities
generally referred to the local Azerbaijani and
Turkic speaking Muslim populations as Tatars.
Oh, OK. So a Russian Tatar school was essentially
a bilingual institution. It was a highly strategic
move on their part. Because they needed both
languages. Yes. By teaching in both Russian and
the native Azerbaijani language, they were giving
these kids the tools to navigate and succeed
within the broader Russian empire without erasing
their local cultural identity. That is so smart.
They open these schools in places like Bilcherry,
Beena, Gobu, Deveche, and the Guba district.
It's like they were planning a cultural root
system. The headquarters in Baku is the Taproot,
but these village schools are spreading out,
pulling in resources, and nourishing a much wider
area. A hub -and -spoke franchise model for literacy,
basically. Exactly. And they didn't just build
new schools either. They also provided financial
lifelines to pre -existing schools in places
like Sadian and Shamaki. Like if a local school
was struggling to keep the lights on, SAFA would
step in. Bridging that urban -rural divide was
the only way to unify the educational standards
of the entire region. By pushing resources out
into the villages, they ensured that this This
intellectual awakening wasn't just a luxury reserve
for city dwellers. But here is the massive glaring
question I've been waiting to ask. Okay, hit
me. Building a massive root system of bilingual
schools requires serious sustained funding. Teachers
like Hussein Javed need to be paid. Buildings
in half a dozen villages need upkeep. Medical
aid requires supplies. Sure does. How does a
charity of 50 people pay for all this? You can't
just rely on 50 membership fees. You can't. And
this is where their strategy becomes entirely
unique. They funded their sprawling charitable
empire by taking to the stage. They created their
own theater troupe. Wait, really? Really. 50
people funded a rural school system and medical
clinics by putting on amateur plays. The math
on that seems almost impossible. How many tickets
were they actually selling? Well, first of all,
it was an amateur hour. They treated it with
immense professionalism, even if they started
out as the underdogs. The underdogs. Was there
another troupe? In Baku at the time, there was
already a major established charitable theater
troupe run by a rival group called the Nijat
Society. Initially, the Safa troupe was much
weaker, but instead of engaging in a destructive
turf war over ticket sales, they did something
remarkable. They collaborated. Which speaks volumes
about their actual priorities. I mean, if you're
just in it for the ego, you try to crush your
rival. Exactly. If you're actually trying to
fund schools, you invite your rival to share
the stage. And that's what they did. You had
major star actors from the Nijad troupe, guys
like Hussein Arablinsky and Mirzaga Aliyev, crossing
over to participate in Zafa's performances. So
they pooled the city's talent. Yes. And that
brings us to a really pivotal moment. Their historic
first major performance on August 31st, 1912.
At the Tagayev Theatre. At a prestigious Tagayev
Theatre. They needed a massive hit to generate
revenue, so they put on a comedy called Aga Karim
Khan Ardabili. Which, if you dig into the background
of that play, is an adaptation of The Miser by
the famous French playwright Molière, adapted
for the local stage by Najaf Bey Vezirov. Here's
where it gets really interesting. The irony is
great. Picture the irony of this. You have a
charitable society, a group of people literally
giving away their time and money to educate the
poor, and they are raising their funds by putting
on a play about a famously greedy money hoarding
miser. It is brilliant programming. And this
raises an important question about how art serves
civic duty. Like, why Molière? Why adapt a 17th
century French comedy for a 20th century Azerbaijani
audience? Because human nature is universal.
Exactly. The local adapters knew that Molière's
sharp critique of greed and hypocrisy would map
perfectly onto the newly wealthy, sometimes ruthless,
oil barons of Baku. The very people they needed
to buy tickets. Right. It was cultural cross
-palmation. They made the French classic feel
hyperlocal and relatable, which drew massive
crowds, which in turn funded The village schools.
And the cast was stacked, too. The play was directed
by Jahom Gera Zanilov, who also starred as the
miser himself. A double threat. Yeah. And playing
his son was a young actor named Abbas Mirza Sharifzadeh.
And I cannot skip over this detail. It is just
too good. Just a few weeks before opening night,
that same actor, Abbas Mirza Sharifzadeh, was
elected to the Safa Society's Audit Commission.
I love that fact. That perfectly illustrates
the reality of grassroots movements. There are
no detached executives. Right. The man who's
going to audit the financial ledgers on Monday
morning is the exact same man putting on makeup
and acting his heart out on stage on Saturday
night. Just to make sure there is actually money
to audit. Exactly. But they didn't just stay
at the Taghiyev Theater in Baku. If you're wondering
how they scaled their revenue to support so many
schools, they literally took the show on the
road. The records show them touring not just
the local villages, but the broader South Caucasus,
Central Asia, Iran, Astrakhan, Kazan. We really
need to pause and appreciate the sheer logistical
nightmare of what you just described. It's massive.
Imagine the year 1912. There's no commercial
air travel. Coordinating a theater tour across
the Caucasus, over the Caspian Sea to Central
Asia, and deep into Iran and Russia meant moving
sets, costumes, and actors by train, by ship,
and by carriage. Just grueling travel. It was
an exhausting multinational physical effort entirely
undertaken to fund a local charity back home.
And it makes you realize that the theater tour
wasn't just a quirky fundraising gimmick. The
performances themselves were the mission. They
were heading their third major goal, elevating
the culture. Yes, the art was the point too.
Right. If you bring world -class, locally adapted
theater to a village in the North Caucasus, you
aren't just raising money. You are expanding
the minds of the people sitting in the audience.
Which is exactly why their repertoire was so
carefully curated. They functioned like a modern
cultural heritage foundation. They weren't just
slapping together crowd pleasers to make a quick
buck. They were actively trying to build a cannon.
of national literature. Right. They organized
these massive cultural centennials and anniversaries.
In 1910, they threw a 25th anniversary celebration
for their lead actor and director Jehangir Zainalov.
Celebrating their own. Yeah. And then in 1911,
they organized the 100th anniversary of the birth
of Mirza Fatali Akhundov, who is basically the
founder of Azerbaijani literary criticism. And
they also did the 40th anniversary of Najafbe
Vezirov in 1913. By throwing those massive celebrations
for writers and actors, the Safa Society was
cementing a unified cultural consciousness. That's
a good way to put it. They were standing up in
front of the public and saying, look at our history.
We have our own literary giants. We have a shared
identity that is worth celebrating and preserving.
When you're a society undergoing rapid industrialization,
and facing massive imperial pressures. Defining
your own cultural heroes is an act of profound
civic resilience. And their artistic ambitions
only grew. By 1914, Jahangir Zainalov officially
took over as chairman of the theatrical department
with Mityi Behaginsky as his deputy. And under
their watch, they moved beyond just comedies.
Oh, way beyond. They started staging heavy hitting
historical dramas like Nadir Shah and even grand
operas like Farhad and Shirin. Staging grand
opera and sweeping historical epics in the local
language proves to the audience that their native
tongue is capable of holding the weight of high
art. It builds a deep, enduring civic pride.
It validates their culture. Exactly. They were
proving that Azerbaijani culture didn't have
to take a backseat to European traditions. It
is an incredible golden age of productivity.
I mean, by 1914, they have their own building,
a network of rural schools, an internationally
touring theater troupe, and they're essentially
curating the national cultural identity. But,
you know, building all of this in peacetime is
one thing. The true measure of an organization's
structural integrity is what happens when a crisis
hits. And in the summer of 1914, the ultimate
crisis hit, the outbreak of World War I, the
conflict through the entire Caucasus region into
chaos. You suddenly had waves of displaced people,
extreme economic instability, and a massive humanitarian
crisis right on their doorstep. The Muslim Charitable
Society in Baku suddenly had to establish four
emergency shelters just for the children who
were displaced or orphaned by the war. Yeah.
And where did they place one of those shelters?
Right inside the Sufi Society school on Boyuk
Chamber Inn Street. The space they built for
education pivoted instantly. It became a place
of physical refuge. They opened their doors without
hesitation. and they continued to leverage their
entertainment arm for relief too. You mentioned
earlier how cutting -edge their fundraising was.
Yeah. The records show they dedicated a full
day's income from their cinematography operations
directly to the victims of the war. Okay, let's
clarify that because cinematography operations
in 1914 is fascinating. We're basically talking
about early silent -era movie screenings. Exactly.
Film was the absolute cutting edge of entertainment
technology at the time. Like the IMAX of 1914.
Pretty much. The fact that this small charity
had the foresight to run early movie screenings
and then turn around and hand the daily box office
receipts over to war refugees shows how adaptable
and forward thinking they were. But amidst all
this local crisis, the war, the refugees, the
need for immediate local relief, there is one
specific action they took in April 1914 that
completely stopped me in my tracks. The situation
with the key of students. Yes, the key of students.
Here's what happened. 25 Muslim students studying
at Keeve University. way over in Ukraine, were
suddenly expelled because they couldn't afford
to pay their tuition fees. The board of the Safa
Society heard about this, pulled funds from their
own hard -earned budget, and sent the money directly
to the rector of the university to bail those
students out. Okay, I have to push back here.
I know what you're gonna say. Put yourself in
the shoes of a Baku resident in 1914. You have
a world war looming. You literally have war -torn
refugee children sleeping in the classrooms of
your local school. Why on earth would a local
charity drain its precious budget to pay tuition
for 25 college kids hundreds of miles away in
Kiev? It's a totally valid critique. On the surface,
it seems almost irresponsible or at least a betrayal
of their hyper -local origins. But if we connect
this to the bigger picture of what the Safa society
actually valued, it makes perfect strategic sense.
They're playing a much longer game than anyone
else. A long game regarding what? The survival
of the intellect. Precisely. They understood
that 25 university educated students were a vital
irreplaceable asset to the future of their culture
If those students drop out, the society permanently
loses future doctors, engineers, architects,
and political leaders. The Safa society didn't
view an educated mind as a local commodity that
had to stay within city limits. They viewed it
as a collective treasure. Yes. Whether that mind
was studying basic literacy in a village in Guba
or studying advanced sciences at a university
in Kiev, it was part of the same root system.
It was worth protecting at all costs. Wow. When
you frame it like that, it isn't a distraction
from their local mission at all. It's the ultimate
expression of it. They were bailing out the future
of their own intelligentsia. Exactly. And they
stayed deeply engaged with student empowerment
right up until the end of their recorded timeline.
Their final major documented act was participating
in the All Caucuses Congress of Muslim Students
in May 1917. Which is such a fitting capstone
to their seven -year run. Think about the trajectory.
They started by simply trying to get impoverished
local kids into a single school building. Seven
years later, they're helping shape the regional
geopolitical dialogue on student empowerment
and cultural identity across the entire caucuses.
It's a staggering density of achievement. So
what does this all mean? Let's just zoom out
and recap what we've unpacked today. In a lifespan
of just seven years, from 1910 to 1917, a core
group of essentially 50 people changed their
world. It really did. They financed and built
their own headquarters. They established a bilingual
rural school network. They provided medical aid.
They adapted French comedies to fund multinational
theatrical tours. They established their own
literary canon through massive cultural centennials.
Right. They housed child refugees during World
War I, and they bailed out university students
across the continent. And the mechanism behind
all of this wasn't massive imperial grants or
infinite wealth. It was extreme personal investment.
They built the walls. They audited the books.
They acted on the stages. It is a master class
in the sheer undeniable force of collective will
and physical effort. It really leaves you with
a provocative thought to mull over. Today, we
have tools the Safa society couldn't even dream
of. We can send money across the globe with a
tap on our phones. We can broadcast a message
to millions in seconds. But has that frictionless
technology actually made grassroots movements
less effective? The Safa society succeeded because
they had physical skin in the game. They literally
built brick walls. They stood under hot stage
lights. They hauled theater sets across the Caspian
Sea. Does our modern ability to simply click
donate and look away rob us of the communal friction
that actually builds a lasting culture. That
is the real question. Friction requires us to
rely on our neighbors, to collaborate with our
rivals, and to show up in person. When you remove
the friction, you might also be removing the
very glue that holds a community together. Something
to think about the next time you tap a button
to support a cause. As you picture that bustling,
unequal city of Baku at the dawn of the 20th
century, remember that the future wasn't just
handed to them by algorithms or distant benefactors.
A group of 50 people picked up the pen, felt
the fiction of the paper, and wrote the future
themselves.