Event Dedicated to the 75th Anniversary of the Jafar Jabbarly State Theatre Museum

Assembly Hall
Organizers: Jafar Jabbarly State Theatre Museum

The Jafar Jabbarly State Theatre Museum was established in 1934. This theatre museum, unique in the Caucasus, was the brainchild of Agakerim Sharifov, Vice Director of Baku’s College of Theatre. He began collecting materials for the museum from 1920. In 1926, together with graduates of the college, he went to Moscow, where he visited A. A. Bakhrushin, Director of the Moscow Theatre Museum, who gave him much valuable advice. Upon returning to Baku, Agakerim Sharifov, helped by well-known theatre workers, established the Azerbaijani Theatre Museum. Those who assisted him in this noble work included Aziz Sharif, Jafar Jabbarly, Azim Azimzade and Sidgi Ruhulla among others. So, in November 1927, in the foyer of Tagiyev’s theatre (at that time the home of the Azerbaijan Drama Theatre) an exhibition was held of Sidgi Ruhulla’s private archive.From 1928, the museum was a department of the theatre but, in 1934, it was given the status of State Theatre Museum. In 1935 it was named after Jafar Jabbarly.
There are 135,000 exhibits in the museum’s main collection. They include the private archives of 700 well-known theatre workers, programmes and posters from nearly all theatre performances, manuscripts and memorabilia, photographs and negatives, designs and sketches for different plays, models, costumes, props etc. In 2004, the museum received the "Golden Dervish" award.
On 16 December 2009, a jubilee event was held in the Museum Centre, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Jafar Jabbarly State Theatre Museum. The official part of the event was attended by Abulfaz Garayev, Minister of Culture and Tourism; Chair of the Culture Workers’ Committee, Jamila Sattarova; Chair of the Theatre Workers’ Union and Honoured Arts Worker, Azer Pasha Nemet; Director of the National Literature Museum, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor and Member of the Milli Majlis, Rafael Huseynov; Chair of the Artists’ Union, Farhad Khalilov; Editor-in-Chief of the Magazine ‘Music World’, Professor and Honoured Art Worker, Tariel Mammadov; theatre workers and representatives of different theatres. The jubilee evening also presented the museum’s website and books.