page_title: Aleksandar Stamboliyski
section_title: Ascension to power
hierarchical_section_title: Aleksandar Stamboliyski / Ascension to power
caption_attribution_description: Български: Паметник-костница на Александър Стамболийски, село Славовица, Област Пазарджик, България English: Memorial ossuary of the Bulgarian politician Alexander Stamboliyski, village Slavovitsa, Pazardzhik District, Bulgaria
context_page_description: Aleksandar Stoimenov Stamboliyski was the prime minister of Bulgaria from 1919 until 1923.
  Stamboliyski was a member of the Agrarian Union, an agrarian peasant movement which was not allied to the monarchy, and edited their newspaper. He opposed the country's participation in World War I and its support for the Central Powers. In a famous incident during 1914 Stamboliyski's patriotism was challenged when members of the Bulgarian parliament questioned whether he was Bulgarian or not, to which he shouted in response "At a moment, like the current, when our brothers South Slavs are threatened, I am neither a Bulgarian nor a Serb, I am a South Slav!". This statement relates to his belief in a Balkan Federation which would unite the region and supersede many of the national identities which existed at the time. He was court-martialed and sentenced to life in prison in 1915 due to his opposition to Bulgaria joining the Central Powers in WWI.
  In 1918, with the defeat of Bulgaria as an ally of the Central Powers, Tsar Ferdinand abdicated in favor of his son Tsar Boris III who released Stamboliyski from prison.
context_section_description: After Tsar Boris III took the throne, the emerging political factions in Bulgaria were the Agrarians, the Socialists, and the Macedonian irridentists. However, due to the loss of the territory of Macedonia immediately following Bulgaria's surrender to the Allied forces, the Macedonian faction fell out of contention leaving the Agrarian and Communist factions struggling for political supremacy. As the general election of 1919 approached, Stamboliyski came out of hiding and won the election of prime minister of the new coalition cabinet. However, because the election was so close, Stamboliyski was forced to form a government coalition between the agrarians and the left-wing parliamentary parties. By March 1920, however, Stamboliyski was able to form a solely BANU government with another decisive election victory and some tactical manipulation of the parliamentary system (common practice at the time). From his complete acquisition of power in March 1920, until his death on 14 June 1923, Stamboliyski ruled Bulgaria with a strong personality leading many to remember him as a kind of strongman, dictator, or thug. This is in spite of his electoral successes.
caption: Memorial ossuary of Aleksandar Stamboliyski
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