Official Honours
Hajibeyov was the creator of the first operas and operettas in the Orient. In 1938, he was awarded with the title of People's Artist of the USSR. During the entire Soviet history, only three or four Azerbaijani musicians ever attained this level. He was also honored with the Order of Lenin and the Stalin Prize which he won twice, once in 1941 for the opera Koroghlu (1936), and the other time in 1946 for the 1945 film based on his opera Arshin Mal Alan.
Hajibeyov was a professor at the Baku Academy of Music (of which he was also head in 1928–1929 and 1939–1948) and Active Member of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. For the last 10 years of his life, he was Chairman of the Union of Azerbaijani Composers.
Hajibeyov joined the Communist Party in 1938. He served twice as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the highest legislative institution in the Union.
Hajibeyov died of diabetes at the age of 63, and was buried at the Alley of Honor in Baku.
On September 18, 1995 the 110th anniversary of Hajibeyov's birth has been celebrated. No one in the history of modern music in Azerbaijan is recognized for having done more to lay the foundation for Azerbaijani music as it exists today, especially with its unique synthesis of Eastern and Western traditional musical instruments and musical forms.
In 2008 the National Bank of Azerbaijan minted a 100 manat gold commemorative coin dedicated to Hajibeyov's memory.
In June 2011 President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of Serbia Tadic unveiled a monument of Hajibeyov on the Dunavski kej in Novi Sad, Serbia.
Read more about this topic: Uzeyir Hajibeyov
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