Barat Shakinskaya was born in Shusha into a bey family. Her mother Aghja (née Hajiyeva) was the niece of Azerbaijani writer and dramatist Abdurrahim bey Hagverdiyev. Her father hailed from the khans of Karabakh on his mother's side and from the khans of Shaki on his father's side. The name Barat means 'God-given', a name chosen by her grandmother Govhar, as Barat was the first surviving child in the family following three her still-born siblings. Later Habib and Aghja Shakinskis became parents to two more children, Suleyman and Sariyya. Barat got primary education in Shusha. After the Eleventh Red Army annexed Azerbaijan in 1920, her father fled to Iran as a political immigrant, while her mother and the children relocated to Ganja and maintained contact with Habib Shakinski until 1928, when the Soviet-Iranian border closed and they were compelled to cease contact with him.