Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences

An event dedicated to the activity of the Scientific Center of Azerbaijan and Caucasian Studies named after Nizami Ganjavi at the Oxford University has been held at the Baku branch of the Moscow State Lomonosov University.The event was attended by the state and governmental officials, MPs, scientific and art figures.

Rector of the Baku branch of Moscow State University, professor Nargiz Pashayeva said the aim of the event was to present another stage of the program on the establishment of the Scientific Center of Azerbaijan and Caucasian Studies named after Nizami Ganjavi at the Oxford University. Nargiz Pashayeva said the official website of the Centre has been placed in the site of Oxford University, saying the Centre was officially recognized and congratulated the event participants. Memorandum on the establishment of the Scientific Center of Azerbaijan and Caucasian Studies named after Nizami Ganjavi at the Oxford University was signed on October 28, 2013.

Nargiz Pashayeva spoke about five main directions of the Centre. The rector said Oxford University gained first place for the scientific researches among the world universities. “The scientific research by the University`s Oriental Studies Department is a sample to other higher Schools of the world”.Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Elchin Afandiyev, president of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Akif Alizade stressed the importance of the activity of Centre in popularization of Azerbaijan in the world.The Center is multifaceted and includes research, academic exchange, scientific and practical conferences, scholarship programs, the implementation of cultural projects. One of the functions of the Centre is to collect scientific information, resource and library fund related to Azerbaijan.Specific role is the popularization of science and public figures of Azerbaijan through the translation and publication of their work in English, French and German. It develops educational and knowledge-based activities on the content of the program center for the 2015-2020 years. Within five years the program is planned to prepare three graduate students, undergraduates and three translated into foreign languages, a number of scientific-theoretical works of Azerbaijani scientists.

The Nizami Ganjavi Program for the study of ancient languages and cultures of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus was born in 2013 when Professor Robert Hoyland came to Azerbaijan to visit archaeological sites and was invited to meet Professor Nargiz Pashayeva, rector of the Baku branch of Moscow State University. Their shared interest in education and research resulted in a joint decision to work towards the establishment of a Centre in Oxford that could provide resources for students and scholars from all over the world to come together to investigate and discuss the pre-modern history and culture of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus. The first step in realizing this aim has been the creation of the Oxford Nizami Ganjavi Program, which will oversee excavations in Barda region of Azerbaijan, the translation of major works of Azeri and Russian scholarship into English and sponsor a number of graduate students. This program will run for five years, in the course of which we will plan the establishment of a more permanent Centre with a long-term endowment. We hope thereby to fill a gap in modern scholarly work on the Caucasus, which tends to focus on recent politics and to ignore the long, rich and diverse history of this strategically and culturally important region of the world.