Mammad Amin Rasulzade §

Born in Novkhani, near Baku, on 31 January 1884 to a mullah's family; co-founded the Hummet Muslim social-democratic group in 1904 and worked on its first newspapers before being driven into Persian exile after 1909, where he edited "Iran-i Now" and helped shape the Constitutionalist press. Joined Müsavat on his return in 1913 and became its undisputed leader; chaired the Azerbaijani National Council that proclaimed the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic on 28 May 1918, the first secular parliamentary republic in the Muslim world, which extended the franchise to women in July 1918, ahead of most European states. Hid in Lahıc after the April 1920 Sovietisation; arrested by the Cheka in August 1920 and personally extracted from prison by Stalin (whom he had known in pre-war Baku), who took him to Moscow under house arrest. Escaped to Finland in 1922 and lived in Istanbul, Warsaw and Bucharest as the figurehead of the Azerbaijani national emigration; settled in Ankara from 1947 and founded the Azerbaijan Cultural Association. Died in Ankara on 6 March 1955; his works form the canon of modern Azerbaijani national thought.