The Russian Empire was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. The national movement of people who were trampled by the tyranny existed in the country started. On 28 May 1918 the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918–1920), the first secular democratic state in the Muslim East was proclaimed. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, founded by Mammad Amin Rasulzadeh, was the first parliamentary republic and the first democratic, legal and secular state in the Turkic and Islamic world.