Why was Ayna Sultanova, the sister of our first female minister “Padla Gazanfar”, shot?

After Azerbaijan gained independence, Ayna Sultanova was one of the topics discussed. Ayna Mahmud gizi Sultanova was born in 1895 in the village of Pirabadir, Shabran District. There is almost no information about who Ayna’s mother Diba Musabayov and her father Mahmud Musabayov were. But the fact that all three revolutionaries came from the same family gave people a certain idea about his parents. Ayna’s brothers Muzaffar Musabayov and Ghazanfar Musabayov followed Bolshevik ideas throughout their lives.

After graduating from the “Saint Nina” gymnasium in Baku in 1912, Aina began working as a teacher at that school. She can be considered the first feminist in Azerbaijan, Milli.Az reported, citing baku.tv.

In August 1919, Aina Sultanova was sent to Moscow to continue her studies at the Communist University named after Yakov Sverdlov.

Aina’s husband, Hamid Sultanov, was Shaumyan’s closest comrade-in-arms, and his brother, Ghazanfar Musabayov, was one of the men who fought with Mikoyan during the Red Army’s occupation of Baku. That’s why the people of Baku nicknamed Ghazanfar Musabayov “Padra Ghazanfar”.

The Bolsheviks also used Aina Sultanova as a propaganda machine. That is why they made him the editor-in-chief of the magazine “Oriental Woman”.

Soon, the author himself, his wife and two brothers became victims of this “purge”. Hamid Sultanov, the father of three children, named one of his sons Vladlen after Lenin. But even this step could not save him from future repressions.

The wave of repression in the 1930s did not escape the influence of politicians who faithfully served the Bolsheviks. To this day, there are different accounts of the reasons for the repression of Ina Sultanova and her family.

In 1938, Aina Sultanova’s brothers Ghazanfar Musabeyov and Muzaffar Musabeyov and her husband Hamid Sultanov were suppressed as enemies of the people and shot. The Commissioner for Internal Affairs Hamid Sultanov, who bloodily suppressed the Ganja uprising in a particularly brutal way and ordered the shooting of Firuddin bey Kocherli, was actually being punished for his actions.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, public attitudes toward Aina Sultanova became more negative. It should also be noted that Aina Sultanova and Nariman Narimanov are the only Bolsheviks whose statues still remain in Baku.

mA