Passion or Profession: President

Period: 1923–2003

Heydar Aliyev was a Communist Party official and a minister for state security in Azerbaijan during the Soviet era. He became the leader of Azerbaijan's Communist Party in 1969 and served in the Soviet Politburo beginning in 1982. After Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, Aliyev was forced from the Politburo in 1987. As the Soviet Union began to collapse in the years that followed, Aliyev led the push for Azerbaijan's independence. He served as president of Azerbaijan from 1993 until his death in 2003.