Asan Sabri Ayvazov was born on 18 May 1878 into a poor peasant family in the city of Alupka in southern Crimea.

At this time, he was already active in the Crimean Tatar nationalist movement, publishing articles for Ismail Gasprinsky's Terciman newspaper in Istanbul and Baku.

[2] Once he arrived in Crimea, Ayvazov opened a new school in his home city of Alupka based on the Jadid principles and the subsequent mektebe-usul-jedid movement of Ismail Gasprinsky.

Ayvazov's school allowed female students to be educated alongside males, and taught the Crimean Tatar language, arithmetic, geography, and grammar.

Founded in 1898, Nejat was a secret society with the aim of creating an independent and neutral state in Crimea, along the lines of Switzerland, under the auspices of Europe's great powers.

Vatan Khadimi promoted the expansion of the mektebe-usul-jedid movement's schools, called rushdiye, and several were opened in many of Crimea's cities and large villages.

Most of those teaching at rushdiyes were blocked from holding educational office, and some were expelled from Crimea, including Ayvazov, who was accused of anti-Tsarist agitation.

[3] From his several trips between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Ayvazov met several ideologues of the Pan-Turkist movement, among them Yusuf Akçura, Ali bey Huseynzade, Abdullah Subkhi, and Mehmet Emin Yurdakul.

Ayvazov was elected in absentia as a member of the Central Executive Committee, and returned in April, though by his own account he preferred to "remain in the shadow" of the two men who had by then emerged as leaders of the movement, Noman Çelebicihan and Cafer Seydamet Qırımer.

[2] Ayvazov was instructed by Çelebicihan and Seydamet Qırımer to travel to Simferopol, in central Crimea, and organise a printing house and newspaper to serve as organs of the Crimean nationalist movement.

When the printing house was ready, Ayvazov was approved by the Central Executive Committee as its editor, and lent the organisation its name, Millet [ru] (lit. 'Nation').

At the same time, he served as ambassador of the Crimean People's Republic to the Ottoman Empire.After the Soviets took control of Crimea, Ayvazov returned to educational pursuits, working at V. I. Vernadsky Taurida National University as a senior assistant and the Crimean Tatar Pedagogical Institute, where he taught the Arabic and Turkish languages.

Under duress, he agreed to cooperate with the Joint State Political Directorate in detailing information about the Crimean national movement to the Soviet government.

[3] Ayvazov illegally sent several letters to Cafer Seydamet Qırımer, who was in exile in Turkey, in the years prior to his death.

According to these letters, he was very fearful of future events, and pleaded for assistance in fleeing the country: My situation is extremely difficult.

Twenty two years later, on 21 January 1960, amidst the Khrushchev Thaw, Ayvazov was found innocent on all charges and rehabilitated.