“I have derived all my strength and will only from my wise and grateful people. In the most difficult times and complicated situations, I relied on my people. It ensured my tolerance, my will and all my success.”

Heydar Aliyev

He is called the architect and founder of the modern independent Azerbaijan state. Because he could have  protected, preserves and developed a state on the verge of financial collapse. Stability set in, the Contract of the Century was signed, and the process of regular army building began. The point, of course, is about Heydar Aliyev, the nationwide leader, one of the personages who changed the course of world history.

On May 10, Azerbaijan marks the 93rd birthday anniversary of great leader Heydar Aliyev.

Heydar Alirza oglu Aliyev was born on 10 May 1923 in Nakhchyvan City of Azerbaijan. In 1939, after graduating from the Nakhchyvan Pedagogical School, he studied at the Architecture Department of the Azerbaijan Industry Institute (present Azerbaijan State Oil Academy). The incipient war impeded to complete his education.

From 1941, Heydar Aliyev headed the department at the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Nakhchyvan and in 1944 was sent to work at the state security bodies. Heydar Aliyev, working since that time in the security bodies, from 1965 held the post of deputy chairman, and from 1967 chairman of the Committee of State Security under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and he was conferred the rank of lieutenant general. These years, he received special higher education in Leningrad (present St Petersburg), and in 1957 he graduated from the History Department of the Azerbaijan State University.

Being elected at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan in July 1969 as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev became the head of the republic. In December 1982, Heydar Aliyev was elected a member of Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Union, and appointed to the post of the First Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR, and became one of the leaders of the USSR. For twenty years Heydar Aliyev was the deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Azerbaijan SSR, and for five years he worked as the Deputy Chairman of the Soviet of the Union of Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

In October 1987, Heydar Aliyev, as a sign of protest against the policy pursued by Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and personally the Secretary General Michael Gorbachev, resigned from his post.

In bound with the tragedy committed on 20 January 1990 in Baku by the soviet troops appearing in the next day at the Azerbaijan Representation in Moscow with a statement Heydar Aliyev demanded to punish the organizers and executors of the crime committed against the people of Azerbaijan. As a sign of protest against the hypocritical policy of leadership of the USSR, in connection with the critical conflict accrued in Daghlig Garabagh, in July 1991 he left the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

By return in July 1990 to Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev lived in Baku, then in Nakhchyvan, and in the same year was elected a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan. In 1991-1993, he held the post of Chairman of the Supreme Assembly of the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchyvan, Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In 1992, at the constituent congress of the New Azerbaijan Party in Nakhchyvan, Heydar Aliyev was elected Chairman of the Party.

In May-June 1993, when, as a result of extreme tension of the governmental crisis, the country was at the verge of civil war and loss of independence, the people of Azerbaijan demanded to bring to power Heydar Aliyev. The then leaders of Azerbaijan were obliged to officially invite Heydar Aliyev to Baku. On 15 June 1993, Heydar Aliyev was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan, and on 24 June - on resolution of the Milli Mejlis, he commenced to fulfill powers of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

On October 3, 1993, as a result of nationwide voting, Heydar Aliyev was elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. On October 11, 1998, having garnered at the elections, passed in high activeness of the population, 76.1 per cent of the votes, he was re-elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Heydar Aliyev, giving his consent to be nominated as a candidate at the 15 October 2003 presidential elections, relinquished to run at the elections in connection with health problems.

On 12 December 2003, National Leader of the Azerbaijani people Heydar Aliyev passed away in Cleveland Hospital in the United States of America.

It is impossible to list all his unprecedented services in various state positions. In East, he was the first who abolished the death penalty; during his ruling time Azerbaijan extended its influence in the world; successes were achieved on external policy, education, literary and cultural development. All aspects of public life benefited from Heydar Aliyev’s care.