Women in Crimea and Caucaus press: Işık, Âlem-i Nisvan and Molla Nasreddin

After 1905 Russian Revolution had brougt freedom of press and publication in Tsarist Russia, the Russian Turks found an opportunity to express, discuss and share their opinions and views with each other. The rise of press and publication activities thanks to the revolution brought up the issue of women, which is a major obstacle to the development of society. The first women's magazine Âlem-i Nisvan, which addressed the Turkic World against the argument that women have a secondary status by society and therefore are deprived of many rights and freedom, started publication in 1905 as a supplement to Tercüman newspaper in Bahçesaray by Şefika Gaspıralı and İsmail Gaspıralı. Alem-i Nisvan, which continued publication between 1905 and 1911, was the first periodical to address women among Russian Turks. Believing that women can shape society by getting education, Alem-i Nisvan shared his own torch of freedom with Işık newspaper, which was launched in Baku in 1911 by Hatice Alibeyova and Mustafa Alibeyov. Işık newspaper emphasized the education and training of women and children between 1911-1912 and drew attention to the fact that women will shape the future of society. Sharing the struggle of women in the Caucasus with Işık newspaper, Molla Nasreddin contributed to the struggle for freedom of women by supporting the women's issue with his comic style cartoons, even though he experienced interruptions in his publishing life from time to time between 1906-1931. These primary media organs of the Turkic World, created a spark for the socio-cultural change of women by mentioning the struggle of the Russian Turkish women's movement, which started from Idil-Ural, to the Caucasus and then to Turkistan, about women's rights in the Western world.