Heydar Aliev: Heydar Aliev, who has died aged 80, was leader of Azerbaijan from 1969 (with a brief interruption) until October 2003 and turned from Brezhnevite party boss into western-friendly statesman.
Two themes dominated his time at the helm of post-Soviet Azerbaijan: the sell-off of Caspian oil (the so-called "contract of the century") and the conflict with Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave within Azerbaijan, with an Armenian majority.
As president of an independent Azerbaijan, Aliev cultivated the image of moderniser. Many, though, will remember a man who presided over a country with a shabby human rights record and endemic levels of institutionalised corruption.
The son of a railway worker, Aliev was born in Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani enclave in Armenia. He graduated in history from Baku State University and then the Industrial Institute of Azerbaijan, and between 1941 and 1944 cut his political teeth as a senior Communist Party functionary in his native city.
His political career was almost nipped in the bud when, following allegations of sexual impropriety, he escaped removal from the party by a single vote. But it was in the KGB that he made his name, rising through the ranks of the Azerbaijan state security service over two decades before becoming deputy head of the organisation in 1964 and head three years later.
In 1969 Brezhnev appointed him first secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Azerbaijan, a position he held until 1982, when he was promoted to become a full member of the central Politburo. Aliev was careful to cultivate his patron, becoming one of his closest allies.
The appointment of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader in 1985 marked a sharp change in Aliev's political fortunes, however. Vilified in the columns of Pravda for corruption, he became one of the first victims of the old-guard clear-out during perestroika.
In 1987 Gorbachev stripped him of his seat in the Politburo and forced him to stand down as head of the Azerbaijan Communist Party. A heart attack and the death of his wife followed soon after, and it was assumed that his political career was over.
He retreated to Nakhichevan, but it was merely a tactical withdrawal. In 1990, with a typically astute piece of political acumen, he resigned from the Communist Party, ostensibly in protest at the events of Black January, when Soviet tanks rolled into Baku and many civilians were killed.
His return to centre-stage was accelerated by Azerbaijan's rapid descent into internal chaos following independence in 1991 and failure to achieve a swift victory in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In 1992 Abulfaz Elchibey, head of the Popular Front that led the movement for Azerbaijani independence, had become the country's first democratically elected president but proved a weak leader. Unable to restore order, he invited Aliev back to Baku to help bolster his government.
When Elchibey was forced to flee the capital in June 1993, following an attempted coup, Aliev became acting president. The latter did a deal with the coup leaders to stave off civil war and was confirmed as head of state in October that year in a presidential referendum.
It was under Aliev that the war in Karabakh entered its bloodiest phase. When he came to power the Armenians had established a strong foothold in the territory, but the war had ground to a halt. In December 1993 Aliev restarted full military operations.
It was during this period that most of the war's estimated 30,000 victims died. As a result of the conflict, a further 750,000 Azeris have been displaced.
Aliev was ruthless with his political opponents, reinforcing his power base by placing allies from Nakhichevan in key positions. Despite increasing discontent with the government over its failure to find a lasting solution to Nagorno-Karabakh, or deal with the long-term social and economic fallout of the war, and despite constant allegations of official corruption, Aliev consistently managed to distance himself from public dissatisfaction.
In October 1998 he was re-elected with 76 per cent of the vote, although opposition groups and international monitors questioned the legitimacy of the result.
He inherited a trump card in the form of the Caspian's oil resources, and his ability to navigate the extremely tricky geopolitical maze of the Caucasus was also testimony to his political acumen. The relationship with the US and western Europe was consummated with the signing of a contract in 1997 with the AIOC, the international oil consortium, which provided western oil companies with a huge stake in the Caspian.
Working with foreign oil companies, primarily BP, Aliev was also one of the driving forces in the development of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, which will transport Caspian oil to the west, via Georgia and Turkey.
That pipeline project heightened an already tense relationship with Moscow, but Aliev managed to avoid complete alienation. Relations were at a low during Boris Yeltsin's presidency, but there was a marked thaw after Aliev's fellow KGB alumnus, Vladimir Putin, came to power.
Of Azerbaijan's other neighbours, Aliev focused on building a strong relationship with Turkey. The relationship with Iran, home to some 14 million ethnic Azeris, but open supporter of Armenia, steadily disintegrated during his rule.
Aliev stepped down from the October 2003 presidential elections on the grounds of ill-health. In the first dynastic succession of the post-Soviet world, the presidency was won by his son, Ilham. The OSCE declared that the vote did not meet international standards, and rioting followed the poll.
Ilham and one daughter survive him. His wife, Zarifa Aziz Alieva, a renowned ophthalmologist, died in 1987.
Heydar Aliev: born May 10th, 1923; died December 12th, 2003