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Summer
1999 (7.2)
Contributors
  They
say artists often anticipate revolutionary movements in society.
This certainly was the case with Farhad Khalilov who was
elected Head of the Artists' Union in 1987. It was the first
time the position had ever been elected, and the first time a
non-Party member, much less one deeply opposed to the Soviet
system, had ever filled it. Khalilov stills heads the Union today
after the USSR has disintegrated. He was extremely helpful in
facilitating our work on this issue.
 So
little anecdotal material has been published about the lives
of artists in Azerbaijan but Ziyadkhan Aliyev, art historian
and critic, makes their stories come alive through research and
because he personally knew many of them. Ziyadkhan heads one
of the consultative departments at Baku's National Museum of
Art. He wrote the articles on some of the giants who are no longer
with us-Sattar Bahlulzade, Azim Azimzade and Bahruz Kangarli.
 Sevda
Aliyeva is a philologist educated at Baku State University.
These days she lives with her family outside of Washington, D.C.
Sensitive to what it means to be living outside her homeland,
Sevda interviewed Akbar Behkalam, an Azerbaijani from Tabriz,
Iran who has been living in Berlin for the past 25 years. She
prepared the material about this immensely talented artist in
an article entitled "Uprooted" in Azeri (Arabic script
on page 93).
 "Paint what you see!" was
the Soviet mandate so Rasim Babayev (1926-2007) did just
that and everything came up looking like divs (devils) painted
under the guise of Primitivism. Yesterday, he was disgraced;
today, he is one of Azerbaijan's most respected artists and is
gradually becoming known internationally. Thanks goes to Rasim
for his artistic judgment in shaping many of the pages of this
issue.
 Hamza Abdullayev not only is gifted with artistic vision and technique,
but he's extremely verbal, a quality that those who express themselves
with symbols often have not developed as much. Politically conscious,
Hamza was at the forefront in the struggle for freedom of artistic
expression throughout the Soviet period. Read his personal saga
starting on page 75.
From Azerbaijan International (7.2) Summer1999.
© Azerbaijan International. All rights reserved.
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