3 journal of azerbaijani studies in search of 'khazar

9. The Constitution of the University and more meetings...
The draft resolution of the Council of Ministers inspired me. I was beginning to live my dream. It could become reality any day. According to the staff of the Council of Ministers, "the main work was done - the draft resolution was signed" and now there were only two "simple" things remaining in order to obtain the final resolution: to actually set up the university and "to prepare a constitution and get it signed, and to meet and convince more people."

I didn't feel that all difficulties are now behind us: there were a lot of "draft resolutions" that never materialized. Particularly in such hard times - "the way forward is difficult, the world is dark", but I was not going "to remove my horse from the road!"¹⁷1 was ready to put up a fight - only political muddle could render me helpless.

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To produce the constitution of the university was not really difficult. I was taking my article "Thoughts on science and education system" as a basis, and trying to understand the rules of the game and the ways of avoiding complications. First of all I was trying to! minimize our dependence on the Ministry of Education and the) Institute of National Economy Management. This dependence is reflected only in two articles of the constitution: to create an annual report on the academic affairs and research, and to get consent of the Minister of Education & the Rector of INEM on solving the problems concerning financing from the state budget. I realized that receiving aid from the state budget would be an arduous and almost impossible task - from this viewpoint the dependence of the university on these two organizations was minimal. However life is unpredictable, so I still wanted just in case to try to include an article on financing coming from two sources in the final resolution.

"Personnel are hired on contractual basis, and the university can set its salaries independently" - these articles in the resolution were indeed signs of independence in those days. The article "the University can create international relations independently" was suggested to be completed with the phrase "and also through the co-operation of the department of international relations of the ME".

I also succeeded in including an article that showed the university's independence from the INEM, which stated "The Baku City Executive Committee is to provide the university with accommodation by the end of 1991".¹

It was also very common at the time for all universities' curricula to be set by the Ministry of Education. I had included an article that enabled the students to choose at least some of their courses and it reduced the role of the curricula sent down from "above".

I also included an item about the Student's Union (which I really wanted to be active), about receiving grants for research, and about the right for the university to have a university press, which I considered very important.

The constitution that I worked out consisted of the following

general 7 items:

1. 
   General regulations, aims and purposes
   
2. 
   University management
   
3. 
   Organization of Academic Activity
   
4. 
   Organization of Research Activity
   
5. 
   International relations
   
6. 
   Sources and Principles of financing
   
7. 
   Legal Status
   

Later this constitution became the basis for the constitutions of a whole family of newly established universities (sometimes it was difficult to distinguish these constitutions from our original).

The draft constitution had to be approved by the Department of Science and Education of the Council of Ministers. Only one article, which stated "The activity of political parties is forbidden at the University", was rejected entirely. My desire not to give an opportunity to the Communist Party to function at the university was met unenthusiastically. I tried to maneuver and say that "I'm speaking about any kind of parties" but it was useless. I was made to exclude this item and I was even told that "the personal relations between the first secretary of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan Communist Party and the Prime Minister are not very good. Adding such a sentence to the constitution is barefaced hostility". "Don't try to include it in your constitution, in reality you can work as you wish" said Qurban Arnirov trying to console me.

Meanwhile, the whole "world was falling apart".¹⁹ The Communist Party ²⁰ was still functioning, but it was not as strong as it was before. The movement against the decision of the USSR Supreme Soviet announcing a state of emergency in Baku²¹ was strengthening. There was a great confusion in people's minds - they couldn't get rid of the old way completely, but couldn't comprehend the changes, couldn't see the future entirely. On January 4, (1991) the destruction of the Kirov's²² grandiose monument in the park overlooking Baku had started. The official reason was subsidence in the upland areas in the Bayil region of Baku. In reality, the national day of mourning, January

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20, was approaching. One year had passed since the Soviet Army had slaughtered part of the peaceful population in Baku. Kirov's \ monument, symbolizing the Soviet regime, was overlooking graves of the innocent dead.

My further meetings with the Minister of Education R. Feyzullayev regarding the constitution were not as friendly as the first one. Hasanov and Mutallittov's personal relationship was an issue, although Feyzullayev who was close to Mutallibov, was trying to accommodate both sides. He could see that the situation was not stable and it would not be very wise to take sides. He would postpone our meetings on various pretexts as if trying to obtain more time for thinking it over and over again. Finally, I got Feyzullayev's signature with the help of Hazrat Agabayli, Head of the International Relations office of the Ministry of Education.

I didn't have a lot of difficulties in obtaining signatures of the Baku city Executive Committee, State Planning Committee, Ministry of Finance, Ministries of Justice and Communication who all had to declare their agreement to the Resolution on the Formation of the University and its Constitution.

Now the Cabinet of Ministers had to issue a final resolution (the name of the Council of Ministers had been 'desovietized'). ²³ ■