Khurshid Agaeva

Khurshid Hasan bey gizi Aghayeva (; April 7, 1906, Baku – December 3, 1953, Baku) was the first Azerbaijani female musicologist, pianist, and Honored Art Worker of the Azerbaijan SSR.

Biography Khurshid Aghayeva was born in 1906 in Baku, into the family of Hasan bey Aghayev, a prominent public, political, and state figure of Azerbaijan. Khurshid Aghayeva graduated from the Azerbaijan State Conservatory in 1935. serving as Vice-Rector for Scientific Affairs of the Conservatory from 1944 to 1946. Aghayeva also translated textbooks on music theory and history from Russian into Azerbaijani.

Personal life Khurshid Aghayeva married Ahmad bey Pepinov, the first Minister of Labor of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. They had a daughter named Sevda Pepinova. During the Stalinist repressions, her husband was arrested. Since the families of those repressed were also persecuted during this period, Khurshid Aghayeva divorced him at his own request. She later married Bahadur Eyvazov, who had been a secretary in the People's Commissariat for Education under Ahmad bey and later became a prominent doctor. Her and Pepinov's daughter, Sevda Pepinova, stayed with her grandmother Khadija Aghayeva from that time. Bahadur Eyvazov, believing that she was the daughter of an "enemy of the people," did not want her to visit their home, and Khurshid never met her again. Sevda Pepinova married a prominent actor of Azerbaijan, People's Artist of Azerbaijan (1960), one of the founders of the Azerbaijan State Academic Theatre of Musical Comedy, Lutfi Abdullayev. Sevda named her daughter after her mother. Khurshid Aghayeva's granddaughter, Khurshid Abdullayeva is currently a professor at the Baku Academy of Music, the director of the Azerbaijan State Choir Capella, and an Honored Artist of the Republic of Azerbaijan.