Ayna Sultanova

Ayna Mahmud gizi Sultanova (1895 – 1938) was an Azerbaijani Communist party activist and statesperson. She was one of the first Azerbaijani female revolutionaries and in 1938, became Azerbaijani female cabinet minister.

Life and career Ayna Sultanova (née Musabeyova) was born in 1895 in the village of Pirəbədil, 15 kilometres east of the modern-day city of Shabran. She was the sister of Gazanfar Musabekov who later became a Bolshevik revolutionary and Chair of the Council of People's Commissars of Azerbaijan, the highest governing body of the republic. In 1912, she graduated from Saint Nino Gymnasium in Baku and later briefly taught at that school. In 1917, she became interested in Bolshevik ideas and on 1918, joined the Russian Communist Party (which later became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union). In 1919, she moved to Astrakhan, In 1923, she also became the editor-in-chief of "Sharg gadini", a Communist magazine aimed at women's emancipation.

She was married to Hamid Sultanov, Chair of the Council of People's Commissars of the Nakhchivan ASSR. In 1938, in the wake of the Great Purge, both of them, along with Ayna Sultanova's brother Gazanfar Musabekov, were arrested on counter-revolution charges and executed by firing squad shortly afterwards.

There is a street named after Ayna Sultanova in Ganja and a monument dedicated to her in Baku.