FIRST AMONG FIRST

Fans of Stalin as an "effective manager" say that the "leader" "accepted the country with a plough and left it with the atomic bomb". At the same time, his "management" killed many of the best men of his time from the mid-1930's to the mid-1940's. During this decade, Azerbaijan also lost a number of great poets, writers, painters, actors and other artists, and we are accustomed from school textbooks to fatal dates of death - 37, 38 and 39. It is particularly regrettable when executioners kill a woman.

In an enlightened family

Xadica Qayibova is considered the first professional pianist of Azerbaijan, and contemporaries called her a true virtuoso. Generally, in her environment everyone was the "first" in their career. One of her relatives was Farrux Aga Qayibov - the first Azerbaijani pilot and participant in the First World War on the world's famous first multi-engine airplane Ilya Muromets. A sister of her husband was Nigar Sixlinskaya - the first sister of charity in Azerbaijan. Her husband's great-grandfather was Vakil Aga Qayibov - the first Azerbaijani who got higher professional medical education in tsarist Russia and was the personal physician of Ibrahim Xalil Xan of Karabakh.

Xadica herself hailed from the Muftizada family, religious Sunni leaders. Her father Osman also had a high religious rank in Tiflis. In other circumstances, in such a family she would be fated to be a mother of many children without a profession. But despite his occupation, her father gave his daughter a secular education - namely, he sent her to study at St. Nina's gymnasium, the best women's gymnasium in the Caucasus. From childhood, Xadica had tutors on various secular subjects. And seeing her daughter's special musical talent, Mufti Osman focused on teaching her daughter to play the piano.

The highly gifted girl married early. Her husband was a young engineer Nadir Qayibov. He was a friend of the family, and their parents knew each other very well as Nadir's father was the mufti of the Caucasus, Huseyn Afandi. It was a very unusual mufti - he advocated general education, funded schools and was even a close friend of Mirza Fatali Axundov.

Both families lived in Tiflis. Then, at the beginning of the 20th century, it was a cultural centre visited by a lot of travellers - historians, ethnographers, writers and musicologists - for exoticism and oriental culture. In 1911, 18-year-old Xadica began giving public concerts.

Young girl and mugam

From the standpoint of our comfortable time when de facto equality has been achieved, it is difficult to fully assess the heroism of Qayibova and her family. But in those days it was difficult to imagine a Muslim girl giving concerts and even trying to make her own contribution to music. She was just 20 when she seriously decided to adapt mugam to the piano. She developed the basic rules for the art of mugam and even taught music in a Russian-Muslim school. Her husband Nadir, like her father, supported Qayibova's talent.

Later, they decided to move to Baku, reasoning that in a Muslim city the family would have more opportunities. In addition, it was already 1919, and the prospects of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic seemed promising. But next year, the city was invaded by the Red Army. The family of hereditary clerics, the Qayibovs, would have had no better fate had they not had good relations with People's Commissar Ruhulla Axundov, who not only stood up for them, but also gave Qayibova the opportunity to head the oriental music department at the People's Commissariat of Education before she turned 30. While working there, Xadica Qayibova made a significant contribution to the creation of the Azerbaijan State Conservatory.

Persecution

The early 1920's, as we know, were a period of mass construction of theatres, which the Communist Party intended to use for propaganda purposes. At this time, Qayibova worked hard - she taught music at educational courses that trained future theatre actors. Then she studied at the composers' faculty at the conservatory. During this period, her husband left her, and Xadica was left alone for several years. In 1933, she was arrested. Communists accused the honoured teacher and musical virtuoso of anti-Soviet activity. The investigation lasted three months, and all this time she was in custody. Unable to prove anything, they released her.

Soon she married Rasid Qayibov (no relation), who was rector of the Karl Marx socio-technical institute (future Narkhoz) at the time. Their joint life did not last long. In the fateful 1937, Rasid Qayibov was first dismissed from all posts and then arrested for anti-Soviet activity and links with Musavat. In the same year, he was executed.

The fate of Xadica Qayibova was decided at the same time. If you follow the "iron" logic of Cheka officials - the family of muftis, the executed husband and the previous arrest were sufficient as evidence. In March 1938, she was arrested and accused of secret Musavatism and espionage.

"Nine times in one month alone, she was taken for questioning, but she refused to admit her guilt," historian Farid Aliyev says. "Then the interrogations stopped, and only once in summer she was taken to court. The trial lasted only 15 minutes, as was usual in such cases, without a lawyer and in the presence of the infamous troika that decided such matters." In October of the same year, she was executed.

The historian says, referring to the book "Women, beauty, and holiness" by Said Gancali that Xadica did not really believe in the capital punishment. She assumed that she would be sent to Siberia. Her cellmate was Zivar Afandiyev, who had a similar fate. Her husband Sultan Macid, a well-known party leader, was also executed a year earlier. The women had long known each other. Afandiyeva survived, and later she said that Xadica was sure that she would be sent to Siberia and that the Soviet government, whatever it may be, would not execute a woman. She even hoped to continue her teaching career in Siberia. Alas, her hopes did not come true. So yet another wonderful and talented person became a victim of "effective management".

In 1956, at the request of Xadica Qayibova's daughter Alanqa Sultanova, her criminal case was reviewed and Qayibova was rehabilitated.