A Soviet republican leader who asserted institutional authority in crisis
“A state of emergency was declared and troops were sent in without the republic’s consent.”
Elmira Kafarova was an Azerbaijani Soviet politician and diplomat who moved through education and foreign-affairs administration before leading the republic’s Supreme Soviet. In January 1990, she publicly protested the declaration of emergency in Baku and the entry of Soviet troops, stating that the decision had been taken while she was in Moscow and without her knowledge. Her institutional dissent, unusual within the Soviet republican leadership, illuminates how the nationalities crisis became a collision among republican institutions, a mass movement, and Union power.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1958Graduated from Azerbaijan State University; pursued philological research
- 1966–1970First Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee of the Azerbaijan SSR
- 1971Ideology secretary of the Baku City Party Committee
- 1980–1983Minister of Education of the Azerbaijan SSR
- 1983–1987Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Azerbaijan SSR
- 1987–1989Deputy Chair of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan SSR
- 1989–1990Chair of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR
- 1990–1992Chair of the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan
Related historical events
The January 1990 Protest and the Sovereignty Legislation
In June 1989 Kafarova became chairwoman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR, and a year later she was elected chairwoman of the Supreme Soviet itself. On the night of 19-20 January 1990 Soviet troops entered Baku and more than a hundred civilians were killed. Kafarova was in Moscow at the time, and the republican Presidium declared the state of emergency in her absence; the decision was later characterised as unlawful. On 21-22 January she convened and chaired the extraordinary session demanded by 160 deputies, which condemned the Union leadership's military intervention as a violation of international law and adopted an appeal addressed to the USSR Supreme Soviet, the union republics, parliaments worldwide and the United Nations. Its central argument was that the emergency had been imposed without the consent of the Soviet government's sanctioning bodies or the republic's own supreme authorities.
Her protest was not merely symbolic. Served as chairwoman of the Supreme Soviet, she is credited with carrying through the declaration of state independence on 18 October 1991 and Azerbaijan's admission to the United Nations on 2 March 1992, and with the appeal to the parliaments and governments of the world for recognition of that independence. In the same period she signed the measures restoring the historic name of Ganja in place of Kirovabad and making Nowruz a public holiday. Some accounts, however, date the act restoring independence to a declaration of 30 August 1991, so the sources differ on the timing and form.
Conflict with the opposition was sharp. Relations with the Popular Front remained strained until she left politics, and after a remark broadcast by mistake in September 1991 she was physically attacked by protesters outside the Supreme Soviet building. Three days after the UN admission she resigned in March 1992 citing her health. She died of a myocardial infarction on 1 August 1993 and was buried in Baku's Alley of Honour. In 1994 her name was mentioned among those responsible for the January events for failing to protect the population, but no criminal case was opened because of her death.