The Azerbaijani government has formally marked the year 2023 as a special year to recall the memories of Heydar Aliyev, the father of the country and a former president of the Republic of Azerbaijan. President, Ilham Aliyev, declared 2023 a Year of Heydar Aliyev in the country and started a brief series of different memorial events across the country.
In addition to the national level events, the Azerbaijani active diaspora located in different parts of the world has started arranging various photo exhibitions, seminars, and informative talks on Azerbaijan’s role in the world, which was mainly shaped by the Heydar Aliyev, who successfully completed his two presidential terms and introducing various multidimensional policy reforms in the country. The vision of Heydar Aliyev supported the mainstream state structure of the Azerbaijani nation and laid the foundations of various policy frameworks to achieve the highly-desired results for the nation.
The quest for making important achievements in all essential areas of the country led Heydar Aliyev to defend the position of Azerbaijan in the international system by supporting and promoting the values of peace and development in the world. Heydar Aliyev’s determination to peacefully uphold the status of his nation in the world appropriately defended the position of Azerbaijan in regional and extra-regional affairs. Based on his exceptional services to the country, the Azerbaijani nation named him the father of the nation.
The intellectual depth of the late President Aliyev introduced the philosophy of Azerbaijanism and instructed his nation to stand respectfully in world politics. In addition to focusing the regional politics, the philosophical foundations of Azerbaijanism provided a clear path to the Azerbaijani nation in the evolving world politics.
The decision to devote a whole year to the memories of Heydar Aliyev was made due to the celebration of the 100th birthday anniversary of the National Leader. The objective behind the year-long series of events is to remain active in the vision of the Azerbaijani nation introduced by former President Aliyev. It is widely believed that the Azerbaijani nation has achieved substantial progress in the socioeconomic, scientific-technical, and cultural domains under the leadership of Heydar Aliyev.
Apart from having a national level recognition, the late President Heydar Aliyev has been highlighted by various formal authorities of states, such as the President of the Republic of Albania, Bajram Begaj. President Begaj highly praised how President Heydar Aliyev managed his country while facing various challenges emerging from diverse directions.
The leaders of various nations have accepted that the father of the Azerbaijani nation is remembered due to his multidimensional potential in different areas and an exclusive focus on good governance, nationalism, legal and administrative reforms, national identity, social justice, and humanity, and internationalism while protecting indigenous values of the nation.
His contribution to nation-building and responsible role as the father of the nation has made him an unforgettable figure in Azerbaijani history. Apart from Azerbaijani formal and informal information sources, the varying nature of analyzing of the international community about Azerbaijan’s domestic policies and Baku’s way of managing cooperative ties with the outside world have appreciated the contribution of Heydar Aliyev in all essential areas of his nation. Azerbaijan’s domestic and international policies, mainly defined by Heydar Aliyev, provided Baku with an advantageous position in various multilateral mechanisms of the international community.
Moreover, the Azerbaijani nation has gained various levels of social, economic, and political developments under the leadership of late President Heydar Aliyev, who played a significant role in the mainstream development of his country and made the history of the country. Based on the outstanding multidimensional services of President Heydar Aliyev, it is appropriate to maintain that the late President Aliyev has been widely accepted as the architect and founder of the modern and independent Azerbaijani state. He is remembered as a national hero, a memorable leader, and a political legend in Azerbaijan.
The Azerbaijani nation respectfully follows the national character defined by Heydar Aliyev and highly admired the contribution of late President Aliyev in the evolution of the Azerbaijani notion of patriotism. Baku’s decision for arranging various activities under the “2023 a Year of Heydar Aliyev” is fundamentally aimed at paying a symbolic tribute to the contribution of President Heydar Aliyev in making Azerbaijan a modern state with full sovereign rights and peaceful high determinations. In this way, academic communities from around the world should explore the personality of Heydar Aliyev on impartial grounds because more studies on this Azerbaijani leader will be a great contribution to the literature.
