Azerbaijan marks Memorial Day of National Leader Heydar Aliyev

Today, Azerbaijan is observing the Memorial Day of the national leader of the Azerbaijani people, Heydar Aliyev, 22 years after his passing.

As Caliber.Az recalls, Heydar Alirza oglu Aliyev was born on May 10, 1923, in the Azerbaijani city of Nakhchivan. After graduating from the Nakhchivan Pedagogical College in 1939, he studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute (now the Azerbaijan State University of Oil and Industry). The outbreak of the war prevented him from completing his education. Beginning in 1941, Heydar Aliyev served as head of a department in the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Nakhchivan ASSR and in the Council of People’s Commissars of the Nakhchivan ASSR. In 1944, he was assigned to work in the state security services.

From that period onward, Heydar Aliyev worked within the state security system. In 1964, he became Deputy Chairman, and in 1967 Chairman of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan SSR, receiving the rank of Major General.

In July 1969, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan.

In December 1982, Heydar Aliyev was elected a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and became one of the country’s top leaders.

In October 1987, Heydar Aliyev resigned from his posts in protest against the policies pursued by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Following the bloody tragedy committed by Soviet troops in Baku on January 20, 1990, Heydar Aliyev delivered a statement the next day at the Azerbaijani representation in Moscow, demanding that the organisers and perpetrators of the crime committed against the Azerbaijani people be brought to justice.

In protest against the duplicitous policies of the USSR leadership regarding the acute conflict situation that had arisen in the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, he left the ranks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in July 1991. Returning to Azerbaijan in July 1990, Heydar Aliyev first lived in Baku and later in Nakhchivan, and that same year was elected a deputy of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan. From 1991 to 1993, he served as Chairman of the Supreme Majlis of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and as Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

At the founding congress of the New Azerbaijan Party held in Nakhchivan in 1992, Heydar Aliyev was elected Chairman of the party.

In May–June 1993, amid a severe governmental crisis that threatened civil war and the loss of independence, the Azerbaijani people demanded the return of Heydar Aliyev to power. On June 15, 1993, he was elected Chairman of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan, and on July 24, by resolution of the Milli Majlis, he began exercising the powers of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. On October 3, 1993, following a nationwide vote, Heydar Aliyev was elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

On October 11, 1998, in elections marked by strong public participation, he was re-elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan with 76.1 per cent of the vote.

Heydar Aliyev had agreed to stand as a candidate in the presidential election scheduled for 15 October 2003 but withdrew due to health issues. On December 12, the national leader of Azerbaijan and President Heydar Aliyev passed away at the Cleveland Clinic in the United States of America.