The pan-Turkist dissident who became Azerbaijan's first democratically elected president
On a November 1992 visit to Ankara he visited Atatürk's grave at Anıtkabir and wrote in the memorial book that he was a soldier of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Azerbaijani politician, born 24 June 1938 in Kalaki, Nakhchivan, died 22 August 2000 in Ankara. Trained in Arabic philology at Baku State University, he took a Candidate degree in history in 1969, was known from the 1970s as a Turkist and anti-communist, and was arrested in January 1975 by the State Security Committee, serving until July 1976 at the Qaradagh stone quarry. A founder and chairman of the Popular Front from 1989, he organized a National Defence Council in January 1990 in the crisis that culminated in the anti-Armenian Baku pogrom and Black January. Elected president in June 1992, he was ousted in June 1993 amid Karabakh defeats and Huseynov's revolt; Heydar Aliyev succeeded him. He returned to Baku in 1997 and led the opposition until his death.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1957–1962Entered the Arabic philology department, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Baku State University in 1957; graduation dated 1962 in the Azerbaijani account, conflicting with a 1957 graduation given in an English account
- 1963–1964Worked as a translator in Egypt
- 1968–1975Lecturer in the History of Asian and African Countries, Baku State University → arrested January 1975 by the State Security Committee, held until July 1976 at the Qaradagh stone quarry
- 1976–1992Researcher, then senior researcher and department head, Institute of Manuscripts, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, until 16 July 1992
- 1989–1992Chairman, Azerbaijani Popular Front
- 1990.01Organized and chaired the National Defence Council in Baku on 12 January 1990
- 1992–1993President, Republic of Azerbaijan. Elected 7 June 1992, took office 17 June; formally stripped of the office by referendum on 29 August 1993
- 1997–2000Leader, Azerbaijani Popular Front Party (in opposition). Returned to Baku on 30 October 1997 and led it until his death
Related historical events
The Whole Azerbaijan programme
Elchibey was a nationalist ideologue who advanced the concept of "Whole Azerbaijan" (Bütöv Azərbaycan). Formulated in 1991 by Piruz Dilanchi and defined by Elchibey in 1992 while he was president, it is an irredentist project of uniting territories claimed as historically Azerbaijani-inhabited into the Republic of Azerbaijan.
In his book Bütöv Azərbaycan yolunda, published in Istanbul in 1998, he argued that Azerbaijan's borders should run from Derbent to the Persian Gulf, and he proposed a system of governance he called "United Azerbaijani Lands". The areas he envisaged included Iranian Azerbaijan (South Azerbaijan), the whole territory of present-day Armenia, Derbent in Dagestan and part of Kvemo Kartli in Georgia, though the boundaries of the concept were never strictly defined.
He opposed the idea of a separate, independent South Azerbaijan. His ultimate goal was to unite the newly independent Republic of Azerbaijan with the Azerbaijan region under Iranian rule and then combine with Turkey to establish a "Turk" federation. In 1997 he founded the Whole Azerbaijan Union to carry the programme forward and took its leadership himself. He built on Mehmed Emin Resulzade's Turkist legacy and extended it into Whole Azerbaijan thinking.