Shafag was born and studied in Baku, Azerbaijan where she studied at Baku Slavic University earning a master’s degree in Russian Language and Literature. Her doctoral dissertation was on the Theory of Literature: Typology of Writers’ criticism on the materials of World and Azerbaijani Writers’ Non-Fiction Works. For 20 years since graduating she has continued to teach Azerbaijani and World Literature at Baku Slavic University, and in connection with that work travels and visits universities throughout Europe. In her capacity as a university professor she regularly supervises papers for BA and MA students. In 2016, Shafag spent a year at University of Oxford Lady Margaret Hall College on a Fellowship focusing on Eurasian Women’s Empowerment.
Shafag has taught Russian at International School of Azerbaijan, an IB World School and has supervised IB Extended Essays including Parallels between Beowulf and Kitabi Dede-Gorgud, H. Javid’s Devil and Goethe’s Faust, Nizami Ganjavi’s Leyli and Majnun and Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. For the past several years she has supported our students in Azeri as well as Russian.