Heydar Aliyev's cult of personality

Heydar Aliyev's cult of personality, also known as Heydarism (Azerbaijani: heydərizm), became a significant part of Azerbaijani politics and society after he came to power in 1993 and continuing after his death in 2003, when his son Ilham Aliyev succeeded him. Aliyev, a former Soviet politburo member and the leader of Soviet Azerbaijan from 1969 to 1987, became the President of Azerbaijan in 1993. He then began to carefully design an autocratic system, with heavy reliance on family and clan members, oil revenues and patronage.

In Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev is presented as "Father of the Azeri nation".

Aliyev has long been accused of violating human rights and forming an system in Azerbaijan, with many critics even characterizing the regime as totalitarian. His personality cult has been compared to that of the Soviet Union, characterized by an atmosphere of fear in Azerbaijan and censorship of the press. This continued following his death. According to Azeri analyst Zafar Guliyev, the 2003 appointment of Ilham Aliyev as his father's successor instigated a process of asserting the personality cult of his predecessor and rewriting recent Azerbaijani history.

In his 2003 book The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia, German journalist Lutz Kleveman described the situation:

Opposition analyst Zardusht Alizade has said that Aliyev "was the last representative of the political heritage of Stalin and Beria. [He] personified the most terrible experiences in the fate of the Azerbaijani people." The 2006 US Congressional Record Proceedings and Debates also expressed concern about how Ilham Aliyev's government maintains a "distinct Soviet-era state television network and has elevated Heydar Aliyev to the status of a minor personality cult figure."

American journalist and specialist on the Caucasus, Thomas Goltz wrote in 1998:

Julie Hill described the cult in her 2005 book, The Silk Road revisited: markets, merchants and minarets, as follows:

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