Josef Rotter

[8] In 1902 Rotter accepted an invitation to teach at the newly founded Tbilisi Secondary School of Painting and Sculpture, the immediate precursor of the Georgian Academy of Fine Arts.

[9] The invitation was issued by Oskar Schmerling, a second generation Caucasian German artist and director of the school, with whom Rotter would remain in close contact for years—the two men not only teaching at the same institution, but also traveling together, and contributing to many of the same magazines.

Each issue of this weekly magazine, whose publication experienced multiple interruptions, had a close to eight-page editorial content, including four pages devoted to social or political cartoons.

Cartoons were meant to widen the audience of Molla Nasreddin, include the less educated, and cross linguistic barriers; and indeed, the magazine enjoyed a large circulation, with numerous schools and coffeehouses among its subscribers, and a geographic reach suggesting a far from exclusively Azeri readership.

Finally, considering Rotter's impact in synergy with all of Molla Nasreddin's collaborators, one should recall the magazine's standing as a main proponent of progressive ideas in the Muslim world, a model or reference point for the Armenian, Azeri, Georgian, Iranian, and Tatar press, and a significant force in the Persian Constitutional Revolution.