(MENAFN- AzerNews) By Elnur Enveroglu
Heydar Aliyev, the greatest leader of Azerbaijani people who has
been a pride of his people with his special ability in various
fields of culture, art and science and profound knowledge of
politics, diplomacy and so on has also been a prominent person all
over the world. learning in particular the childhood period of the
national leader's rich life could be more interesting from this
viewpoint.
The document shows Heydar Aliyev was born in 1923 in the city of
Nakhchivan, and in 1999 the museum of Heydar Aliyev was set up.
Many documents belong to the National Leader was gathered to the
museum, and the great leader Heydar Aliyev himself described the
childhood years as follows:
“When I was young, I didn't realise about becoming a great
leader some day. I didn't think that I would enter politics and
become a statesman. I didn't even think about the future.
Basically, I was just studying as hard as I could in school and
trying to gain some basic knowledge and get excellent grades. I
would say, though, that when it came to my studies, I was quite
disciplined.”
Moreover, the documents says that Heydar Aliyev was talented
child among his fellows in the old Nakhchivan in the 30-40s.
According to Latif Huseynzadeh, who was the Azerbaijani and
literature teacher of the National Leader at the Nakhchivan
Pedagogical school said that Heydar Aliyev had been an excellen
pupil and enjoyed himself as a teacher.
In his inlerview to the American journalist Heydar Aliyev
rememebered his childhood ages as below:“As for my father and
mother - they made a profound impact on my life. We were eight in
the family. My father worked for the railroad as a locomotive
driver. But they had many fine human qualities. It's true that our
living conditions were very difficult, but I can't remember that we
were unhappy. We thought that the situation and conditions we were
in were just gift of God and we accepted them as such. Neither my
mother nor father were educated, but we kids - all eight of us -
received very good education. Several of us became scientists and
professors. One of my brothers became an artist. I eventually
entered government service. But my greatest interest was in
theater. Despite the fact that Nakhchivan [pronounced
nakh-chi-VAHN], where I grew up, was a small, provincial Muslim
town, there was a very high level of culture there. Our theater
tradition dates back more than 100 years. Can you imagine that
there was a theater tradition there so long ago? That's quite an
accomplishment given that Tabriz, for example, a large Iranian city
populated primarily by Azerbaijanis and about three hours south of
Nakhchivan, still to this day doesn't have a theater. Yet
Nakhchivan does. In other words, although there were only a few
people that you could call intellectuals, they had created a
theater. When I was 12 and 13, I used to go there a lot. Sometimes
I didn't have money, but since I was a kid they would let me in
without a ticket. It was a great event for me. Such occasions are
among my dearest memories of childhood.
The theater had a profound impact on me. It wasn't long before I
started getting involved with theater myself at the Pioneers'
House. The leader of our club was one of the leading actors at the
Nakhchivan theater.
After a while, I was assigned some of the key roles. For
example, Mirza Fatali Akhundzade, the founder of theater in
Azerbaijan, wrote the country's first dramatic work. He has a play
called "The Adventures of the Lankaran Khan's Vizier". I read
somewhere in the newspapers recently that this work was being
staged again, but I ended up playing the key role when we staged
it. Of course, we couldn't perform the entire piece - only two or
three acts. I was 14 or 15 years old at the time. Later we staged
Hamlet in two parts. I played Hamlet.
In Azerbaijani, of course...
Yes, it had been translated into Azeri. I don't speak English.
No one knew English in Nakhchivan at that time. I also pursued
drawing and could draw quite well. My sketches used to take first
place in competitions at our high school. Perhaps there was some
sort of talent in our family, because my older brother became an
artist. While I was studying in high school, he was off in
Leningrad (St. Petersburg) at the Art Institute. When he would come
home on vacations, he would draw scenes from nature. I would hang
around with him and so I started to draw as well. I discovered that
I could do it quite well. So by the time I graduated from high
school, I thought that I wanted to become an artist. But at that
time, Azerbaijan didn't have an Art Institute, so there was no way
for me to get further training and experience. At the age of 16, I
left Nakhchivan for Baku”.
According to Heydar Aliyev, he left Nakhchivan for Baku early
age. He had to take a train for three days because there wasn't a
train running directly between Nakhchivan and Baku. He had to go to
Yerevan and then Tbilisi and then change trains for Baku. He has
slept in railroad stations on many occasions. He used to have a
small suitcase that he would put under his head so he could sleep
on the floor in those stations. Then He came to Baku and studied
architecture at the university.
At that time Nakhchivan didn't have a university and Aliyev
wanted to get more education. His brother was living in Baku at the
time. His brother became a scientist and used to work at the
Academy of Sciences. Young Heydar was interested in architecture
and loved it very much. Heydar Aliyev had planned to study to be an
architect.
It should mention one other thing. In Nakhchivan Heydar Aliyev
had studied in Azerbaijani, but in Baku at the university,
architecture was taught only in Russian since the professors had
all come from Russia. Heyday Aliyev's Russian was not that good. It
was a serious problem for him, and he was worried that he wouldn't
get accepted. But his older brother insisted that he would
gradually improve his Russian. At that time, there were very few
Azerbaijanis outside of Baku that spoke Russian.
Well, Aliyev did succeed in learning Russian and in getting
admitted to the Faculty of Architecture at the university. Heydar
was on his own, living alone in a dormitory. He had a lot of
financial needs, since his father's family was so large that he
couldn't afford to send him money. Despite the fact that he had a
scholarship, it was not enough to cover living expenses.
An older friend in the dormitory, a Russian, one day asked him
whether he wanted to make some money. Of course, he did. So they
went down to the port of Baku and unloaded logs from the ships.
Heydar used to go to the port from 7 or 8 p.m. until 1 a.m. They
would carry the logs on their shoulders. It took two or three
people to carry one of those huge logs. They would get paid every
ten days. So for four or five months Heydar Aliyev made some money
that way.
But Aliyev soon realized that he was getting bruises on his
shoulders from carrying those logs, so he quits. His brother helped
him get another job at the Geography Institute of the Academy of
Sciences. Heydar Aliyev went there in the evenings and worked until
midnight copying maps. It was easier work and enabled him to make
some money. So that's how he was living.
Once again, Heydar Aliyev got involved with drama at the
university. After the first year, Aliyev was again assigned some of
the leading roles. Theater has had such a great impact on Heydar
Aliyev. Playing those roles helped young Aliyev to understand the
deeper meanings of those works, he said: To this day I still love
theater very much, he added.
Then 1941 came, the war broke out and that was the end of
Aliyev's college education. It was Heydar's third year of school
but he was drafted into the army and sent to the Ministry of
National Security. Within a year or so, he became a lieutenant, but
his heart missed architecture, he said. After the war he wanted to
leave the army and continue in architecture, but they wouldn't let
him go back. He only studied for about three years. Then he worked
in the security system. Again with success. He ended up staying
there for 26 years working in security.
Heydar Aliyev was very successful and eventually was appointed
as General. He was very much appreciated in that system as well,
because political knowledge was very important. Then in 1969 he was
elected as a leader in Azerbaijan.
But getting back to our original question, in other words, when
Heydar was young he had no intention of getting involved with the
military or working in security, political parties or the
government. He simply wanted to become an artist or an architect,
he said. But life took him down a different path. It turned out
that he also had talent in these other areas, but he didn't know
that when he started, he said.
Accoring to Aliyev, It's true that there were chauvinists in
Moscow as well as in the Politburo. They were jealous because they
felt that only Russians should hold these top positions.
“I remember that in one of the American magazines which was
called The Time Magazine - there was an article about me sometime
in 1983 or 1984. It said that Heydar Aliyev was the most qualified
and deserving person to head up the Soviet Union after the death of
Andropov. But, the article noted that since I was a Muslim, I would
never be allowed to lead the Soviet Union.
Again, after the death of Andropov and later Chernenko, there
were several articles in the Western press saying that I was a very
valuable and deserving candidate to lead the Soviet Union. Those
articles sparked even more jealousy towards me which intensified so
much that I had to resign from the Politburo in 1987.
There was one more magazine article that I should mention. It
was in an American magazine. It said, (I'll repeat the quote in
Russian) "Among the sleepy members of the Politburo, Heydar Aliyev
looks like a Hollywood star." So that's how I entered politics.
It's hard to identify something specific that happened in
childhood that made me become a politician. Most likely it was
because I worked very hard. Look, you're meeting with me today - on
a Sunday. No one works in America on Sundays, nor in Moscow. But
here I am in my office and I'm making all these poor people around
me work”, he said
Heydar Aliyev was indeed, the greatest leader of his time and
today, and we are proud of him. Azerbaijani people follow his
political way. Once the journalist asked him about it, he replied
that they must pursue the policy that I have put in place. If they
do, then they will succeed. If not, then Azerbaijan will face so
much tragedy.
You have to take into consideration the interests of every
country. You can't be friends with some countries and enemies with
others despite the fact that this is the way most countries
function. Azerbaijan doesn't want to be an enemy with any country.
At the same time, we will not become victim to another country's
policies. Azerbaijan has its own independent policy. At the same
time, we are developing good relations with Europe and America and
seek to benefit from their experiences while preserving our own
national identity and our own resources.
---