Alimardan bey Topchubashov was an Azerbaijani public and political figure.
He was born in 1862 (according to some sources, in 1865) in Tiflis in a family of landowners. He received his primary education at a preparatory school, and then in 1888 he graduated from the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. He worked as a barrister, was one of the leaders of the Muslim community in Baku, a member of the Baku City Duma. Editor of the Russian-language newspapers Kaspiy and Baku, the Turkic-language newspaper Hayat (Life).
After the February Revolution of 1917, Topchubashov pushed for the maintenance of a unified Russian state as well as the formation of a Constituent Assembly. In March 1918, he headed the Azerbaijan National Committee. He also participated in the work of the Caucasian (April 2018, Baku) and the First Russian Muslim (May 1918, Moscow) congresses, at which he called for the federal structure of Russia. At the State Conference in Moscow on August 15, 1918, he spoke in favor of “an honorable peace without annexations and indemnities on the basis of self-determination of peoples”, “the unity of all nationalities and the establishment of contacts between them”, “the implementation of national and cultural autonomy”. After the victory of the Bolsheviks in central Russia, Topchubashov was elected a member of the Russian Constituent Assembly, and after its dissolution, he was elected a member of the Transcaucasian Seim (February 10 – May 26, 1918).
In the days of independence, he was a member of the Provisional National Council of Azerbaijan. After the proclamation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Topchubashov became its extraordinary representative in independent Georgia, then in Turkey. In Istanbul, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and in absentia, on December 7, 1918, he was elected chairman of the parliament of Azerbaijan. He headed the delegation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. After the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan in April 28, 1920, Topchubashov was in exile. At the Genoa (1922) and Lausanne (1923) conferences, he raised the issue of the illegal occupation of Azerbaijan by the Red Army. He died in Paris in November 8, 1934.
