Eastern European, Central Asian, and Slavic Studies librarian Liladhar Pendse’s project, “Contesting identities: Azerbaijani periodicals press of the late 19th and early 20th century,” is a bibliographic study of Azerbaijani periodicals examining their influence among Muslims throughout the Russian empire, Ottoman Empire, and Qajar Iran. In post-Czarist Russia, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) was the first democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world. Despite the ADR’s relatively short existence from May 1918 until April 1920, the period witnessed a flowering of Azerbaijani press that reflected democratic and secular ideals. The ADR’s periodical press represents a unique but overlooked social laboratory that ties together political and social currents in Tsarist Russia with those in the broader Muslim world. Pendse’s project investigates the formation of “new” Azerbaijani identity in the ADR and creates the first comprehensive annotated bibliography of the periodicals of Azerbaijan from 1875 to 1920.