Zardusht Alizadeh

Zardusht Mammad Mubariz oglu Alizadeh (Azerbaijani: Zərdüşt Əlizadə, born 1946, Baku) is an independent Azerbaijani political analyst and former politician. He is known for his interviews, political comments and articles criticizing the heavy-handed rule of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party.

Zardusht Alizadeh was born in 1946, one of the three children of Mammad Mubariz Alizadeh, a professor of philology of the Baku State University, and his wife Zinat. He attended Public School #132 and in 1969, graduated from the Baku State University with a degree in Arab Studies. For the next seven years, he worked as a Russian to Arabic translator with various Soviet missions in Egypt and South Yemen. From 1971 to 1990, he worked for the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, where he later earned a master's degree in philology.

In 1988, Zardusht Alizadeh became one of the founders of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, the first opposition party in then Soviet Azerbaijan. In his memoirs, Alizadeh described his initial vision of the party as one led by "patriotic intellectuals able to [...] make adequate decisions guaranteeing [...] democratization, transferring of the state's property under the people's control, freedom of speech, a multi-party system and fair elections". Alizadeh says he was against electing Abulfaz Elchibey as the leader of the new party, as that would mean changing its orientation from being democratic to nationalist. Later he also questioned Isa Gambar's dedication to democratic change, accusing him of "pandering to the demands of the angry mob" to gain its support.

In 1989, he was one of the party delegates sent to Georgia to meet with members of the Georgian opposition, including Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava, to prevent potential ethnic clashes involving Georgia's Azeri minority.

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