Ayda was born Gadile Sadreyevna Maksudova (, ) in
Saint Petersburg while her father the Tatar
Sadri Maksudi was a member of the
Duma, serving as a representative of the
Ittifaq al-Muslimin party, close
Kadets. In 1917, her father became the leader of
the first state formation in the
Idel-Ural since the territory of the
Kazan Khanate was
occupied by the Russians in 1552. She left
Russia during the
famine of the 1920s as a small child, when her mother Kamile, the daughter of the gold-mining
Ramiev family of
Orenburg, took her and her younger sister Naile across the Russo-Finnish border in a clandestine way. They reunited in
Finland with
Sadri Maksudov, who himself had left the country dressed as a
mujik, after the
Bolsheviks had put an end to his government in 1918. The family then spent a year in
Germany, where Adile started school; then moved to France where they settled. An invitation by Turkey's founding president
Atatürk to her father to come and work in
Turkey, and the latter's accepting the invitation, brought about a radical change in Adile's life. Once in Turkey, Adile became Adile Arsal as her father took on a new surname according to the law. She went on with her education in
Istanbul, at a French nuns' school,
Lycée Notre Dame de Sion Istanbul, and so continued the French education she had been introduced to in
Paris. Raised thus in the French intellectual tradition, Adile became, and remained to the last, a French intellectual at heart. She then attended the law school in Ankara where her father was teaching. She was also a staunch
Kemalist throughout her life. Known for her strong personality, she was in fact one of the many formidable women the modernizing efforts of the
Turkish Republic would bring to the fore. Ayda was married twice. Her first marriage, to a physician, was very brief. Her second husband was
Reşid Mazhar Ayda (1900–1986), a
United States-educated mechanical engineer whom she married in 1942. He was the descendant of an old
Ottoman family of Istanbul. The Aydas had two daughters and five grandchildren. == Works ==