Heydar Aliyev
Alirza oglu Aliyev was the third President of Azerbaijan for the New Azerbaijan Party from October +1993 to October 2003, when his son Ilham Aliyev succeeded him. From тисячу дев'ятсот шістьдесят дев'ять to 1982, Aliyev was also the leader of Soviet Azerbaijan, effectively dominating the political life of Azerbaijan for many years. of the details of Aliyev s early life are obscure. According to his hagiographical website, he was born in Nakhchivan City. After graduating from Nakhchivan Pedagogical School, from 1 939 to 1941 Aliyev attended the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute (now the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy), where he studied architecture. In 1949 and +1950, he studied at the USSR MGB Officer Corps Qualifications-Raising School. Aliyev s official biography also claims that he studied at Baku State University, graduating with a degree in history in 1957. However, it seems that he actually attended the Ministry of State Security Academy in Leningrad.
Aliyev joined the Azerbaijan SSR People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB) in 1944. In 1954, as part of a government reform, NKGB became known as Committee for State Security, or the KGB. Aliyev rose quickly within the agency to the rank of Major-General, became a deputy chairman of Azerbaijani KGB in 1964, and its chairman in 1967.
In +1969, Aliyev was appointed by Leonid Brezhnev to the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan Communist Party amidst a Soviet anti-corruption campaign, Aliyev made some progress in the fight against corruption: a number of people were sentenced to prison terms; and in 1975, five factory and collective farm managers were sentenced to death for gross corruption. In the early 1980s, Aliyev barred the offspring of certain legal personnel from attending the Republic s law school, in a purported effort to curb a self-perpetuating elite based on corruption. In 1977, even in Brezhnev s time, he visited Iran: Mashhad twice and Kerbala once.22 November 1982, Yuri Andropov promoted Aliyev from candidate to full member of Soviet Politburo and appointed him to the post of First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, responsible for transportation and social services. Aliyev thus attained the highest position ever reached by an Azerbaijani in the Soviet Union. Aliyev was forced to resign from this position in 1987 amidst allegations of corruption made against him by Mikhail Gorbachev.December 1991, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist and Azerbaijan formally became an independent state, despite Mutallibov s presidency Aliyev independently governed Nakhchivan. Early 1 992 was marked by increased violence in Nagorno-Karabakh War with the fall of Shusha, the last Azerbaijani-populated town in Nagorno-Karabakh. These events resulted in the resignation of Mutallibov and the subsequent rise to power of the Azerbaijan Popular Front led by Abulfaz Elchibey. During Elchibey s one year in power, Aliyev continued to govern Nakhchivan without any subordination to the official government in Baku. The attempt by the Popular Front s Minister of Interior Isgandar Hamidov to forcibly overthrow Aliyev in Nakhchivan was thwarted by local militia at the regional airport. During the same period, Aliyev independently negotiated a cease-fire agreement in Nakhchivan with the then-President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrossian.9 June 1 993, after the military coup in Ganja led by Colonel Suret Huseynov, Abulfaz Elchibey was forced to invite Heydar Aliyev to Baku to mediate the crisis. On 24 June тисяча дев'ятсот дев'яносто три, amidst the advancement of insurgent forces under Huseynov s control towards Baku, Elchibey fled from the city to his native village of Keleki in Nakhchivan. Earlier, on 15 June тисяча дев'ятсот дев'яносто три, Aliyev had been elected Chairman of the National Assembly of Azerbaijan, and after Elchibey s flight he also assumed temporary presidential powers. In August 1993, Elchibey was stripped of his presidency by the nationwide referendum, and in October 1993, Aliyev was elected President of Azerbaijan. Aliyev s health began to fail in 1 999, when he had a major heart bypass operation in the United States at the Cleveland Clinic. He later had prostate surgery and a hernia operation. He suffered a collapse while giving a speech on live television in April 2003. On 6 August Aliyev returned to the United States for treatment of congestive heart failure and kidney problems. He stood down from the presidency at the start of October +2003, but in an extremely controversial move appointed his son Ilham as his party's sole presidential candidate. On 12 December 2003, President Heydar Aliyev died at the Cleveland Clinic He was buried at the Fakhri Khiyaban (The Alley of Honor) cemetery in Baku.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
