Asif RUSTAMLI
DOI:
Abstract
During the republican period, more than 60 of our national press became exemplary historical chronicles, highlighting and immortalizing the problems of independence of Azerbaijan, the ideology of freedom, and the socio-political mission on their
pages. Of them, only the "Istiglal" newspaper continued its conspiratorial activities for
about three years after the aggression of the Russian military occupation forces against
the country.
In the post-republican period, the "Istiglal" printing house can also be called a
mobile printing house. Because, during its operation, it was forced to change its address
four times to avoid persecution and surveillance. From the documents we have obtained, it is clear that the leadership of the national independence movement against
the Soviet regime, especially Mirza Bala Muhammadzadeh, intended to move the printing house to the settlements of Bayil, Keshla, Turkan or Mashtaga in order to ensure the
safety of the "Istiglal" newspaper and the people working there, but could not achieve
the opportunity to realize this idea. Although the Chekists, who had been searching for
M.B. Muhammadzadeh since June 1923, could not find him, they were able to discover
the printing house of the "Istiglal" newspaper, which can be called the national "Nina"
of the resistance movement, as a result of a neighbor's written betrayal to the police.
The investigators of the Federal Security Service used the "Istiglal" newspaper and the
underground printing house as a reason for mass arrests in criminal cases against the
national independence activists, and achieved their most severe punishments, including their exile to the Solovki Islands - "Ice Hell" (A. Abid).