[6] The family fled revolutionary Russia soon after the Communist takeover within weeks of her birth, arriving in France in 1919, when she was just two.
Mélikoff was editor-in-chief of Turkika, the only Turkology magazine published in Western Europe, also visited Tabriz in Iran and collected rich material about her beloved Shah Ismail Khatai.
After the Soviet Army's massacre in Baku on January 20, 1990, Melikoff rallied in Paris with many members of the Azerbaijani exile.
[9] Her father was the Azerbaijani oil tycoon, merchant, intellectual and philanthropist Iskander bey Malikov, and her mother was the Russian ballerina Yevgenya Nikiferovna Mokshanova.
[10] Following in her mother's footsteps, her daughter Shirin Malikova specialized in Azerbaijani literature and received a doctorate.