It is the 101st anniversary of the birth of National Leader Heydar Aliyev

Today is the 101st anniversary of the birth of Heydar Aliyev the National Leader of Azerbaijan.

Heydar Alirza oglu Aliyev was born on 10 May, 1923 in the city of Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan. In 1939, after graduating from Nakhchivan Pedagogical Technical College, he studied Faculty of Architecture in the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute (present Azerbaijan State Oil and Industrial University). The war did not allow him to finish his education.

Since 1941, Heydar Aliyev worked as a department head in the Nakhchivan MSSR People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and the Nakhchivan MSSR Council of People's Commissars, and in 1944 he was sent to work in the state security agencies. Since 1964, Heydar Aliyev, who has worked in the system of security agencies, worked as the deputy chairman of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan SSR, and from 1967, he rose to the rank of major general. In those years, he received special higher education in the city of Leningrad (presently St. Petersburg). In 1957, he graduated from the Azerbaijan State University (presently Baku State University), Faculty of History.  

Heydar Aliyev was elected as the first secretary of the Central Committee in July 1969 plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan and became the head of the republic. Heydar Aliyev, who was elected a candidate of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in December 1982, was appointed as the First Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR. Heydar Aliyev was a deputy of the Supreme Soviets of the USSR and the Azerbaijan SSR for twenty years and served as the first deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers for five years.

In October 1987, Heydar Aliyev resigned from his positions as a sign of protest against the political line introduced by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and personally by Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev.

The bloody tragedy committed by the Soviet troops in Baku on the night of  On 20January 1990, Heydar Aliyev made a statement at the Azerbaijan’s Representative Office in Moscow demanding to punish of the organizers and executors of the crime against the people of Azerbaijan. As a sign of protest against the hypocritical policy of the USSR leadership towards the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, he left the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in July 1991.

Having returned to Baku on 20 July 1990, Heydar Aliyev left for Nakhchivan two days later, where he was elected as a member of the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

In 1991, Heydar Aliyev was elected as chairman of the Supreme Assembly of the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan, and in accordance with the legislation as deputy chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Azerbaijan.  

Heydar Aliyev, who returned to Azerbaijan in July 1990, first lived in Baku and then in Nakhchivan, and was elected a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan in the same year. In 1991-1993, he was the Chairman of the Supreme Assembly of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In 1992, Heydar Aliyev was elected chairman of the New Azerbaijan Party at the founding congress held in Nakhchivan.

In May-June 1993, when Azerbaijan was at the verge of civil war and loss of independence, the people of Azerbaijan demanded to bring Heydar Aliyev to power. The leadership of Azerbaijan was forced to invite Heydar Aliyev to Baku.

 The then leaders of Azerbaijan were forced to officially invite Heydar Aliyev to Baku. Heydar Aliyev was elected the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan on 15June 1993, and on 24July, by the decision of the Milli Majlis, he began to exercise the powers of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

On 3 October 1993, in a nationwide voting which saw high turnout, Heydar Aliyev was elected as President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

  On 11 October 1998, he was re-elected as President of the Republic of Azerbaijan with 76.1 percent of votes in a high turnout election.

Having agreed to run for the presidential office at the 15 October 2003 election, he then withdrew his candidacy in favor of Ilham Aliyev in connection with health problems.

On 12 December 2003, National Leader of the Azerbaijani people, President Heydar Aliyev died at Cleveland Clinic (USA), where he was being treated, and was buried at the Alley of Honors in Baku on 15 December.

Heydar Aliyev has been awarded many state orders and medals, international awards, and was elected an honorary doctor of universities of various countries.