Media for children in Azerbaijan

One of the largest fields of Azerbaijan media is children’s media.

N.Narimanov, C.Mammadquluzadeh, M.E.Sabir, A.Shaiq, U.Hadjibekhov, S.S.Akhundov, R.B.Efendiyev, A.Sehhet, M.Mahmudbekhov and other teacher and writers had unforgettable services in the formation of this field. They were teachers besides being a writer, prepared textbooks, manuals, and programs, actively participated in the periodical press. One of the most important issues for these intellectuals was the establishment of a school with new teaching methods, preparation of works for children meeting the new requirements. At the new schools, great attention was paid to the poems and stories in compliance with the level and taste of children, literary sketches concerning historic events in literature books.

The first child magazines- “Debistan” (1906-1908), “Rehber” (1906-1907), “Mekteb” (1911-1920) paved the way for the development of media for children together with the publications (“Molla Nasreddin”, “Zenbur”, “Babayi-emir”, “Mezeli”, etc) that gathered around writers who supported democracy and education, and promoted advanced tendencies and realist ideas. 

The main objective of the magazine “Rehber” (“Leader”) published by enlightener M.Mahmudbekhov was to educate and teach the teenagers. The magazine was mainly based on pedagogical-educative themes and paid special attention to the series of articles by S.M.Qanizadeh called “Educating the infants” dealing with the educative methods, published translations from the world literature by A.Sehhet and M.E.Sabir. In comparison with “Debistan” and “Rehber” magazines, “Mekteb” (“School”) (1911-1920) kept its life longer and the content was richer. The editorial of the magazine published with the initiative of educational journalists Q.R.Mirzezadeh and E.T.Efendizadeh defined its direction in the following way: “Our aim in publishing “Mekteb” is to provide a little support to the improvement of school children. If the knowledge of students reading “Mekteb” enhanced, it means we have reached our objective”. From the first issues, “Mekteb” served to the education and training of the teenage. The majority of works published in the journal highly appreciated the role of science and school, convincingly promoted the educative methods of schools of new type. Along with teachers, lovers of literature, and educational intellectuals, well-known writers and poets of that time participated in the journal, published their poems and stories as well. H.Javid, E.Nezmi, A.Sehhet, A.Shaiq, R.Efendizadeh, S.S.Axundov, I.Musabekhov and other poet and writers periodically published their works in the magazine.

The formation children prose in Azerbaijan is connected with the media for children.

The first children media- “Education”, “Red Sun”, “Clarity”, “Golden Glow”, “Golden youth”, “Young worker”, “School” and other newspaper and magazines gathered around a large group of intellectual lovers of literature including writers, students, etc.

Media for children developed rapidly in the country in the period of independence. 

Currently, magazines like “Goyerchin”, “Elli”, “Bala dili”, “Yuva”, “Goy qurshagi” are considered to be the best samples of Azerbaijan media for children.