Hümmət (Endeavor)
Hummet was a Muslim social-democratic organisation founded in Baku in 1904 within the wider socialist world of the Russian Empire. It brought Muslim workers and intellectuals into Marxist politics while also carrying Azerbaijani and Turkic concerns that Russian socialist organisations often neglected. Nariman Narimanov and other future Soviet Azerbaijani leaders emerged from this milieu.
Muslim social democracy in Baku
Hummet was a Muslim social-democratic organisation founded in Baku in 1904 within the wider socialist world of the Russian Empire. It brought Muslim workers and intellectuals into Marxist politics while also carrying Azerbaijani and Turkic concerns that Russian socialist organisations often neglected. Nariman Narimanov and other future Soviet Azerbaijani leaders emerged from this milieu.
The group's significance is that Azerbaijani politics did not develop only through nationalism or pan-Turkism. Baku's oil economy created a working-class and socialist environment where Muslim activists negotiated class, religion, language and empire simultaneously. Hummet sat at that intersection. editorial
After 1920, Hummet's world was absorbed into Soviet power and the Communist Party of Azerbaijan. Its legacy is ambiguous: it supplied cadres to Soviet Azerbaijan, but Soviet rule also extinguished the plural political field from which it came.
Events
| Year | Event | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1905 | Shusha pogrom (1905) | parallel Azerbaijani Marxist organisation of the period |
Members & leaders
| Figure | Role | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Nariman Narimanov | leading member | , |