[or Stamboliyski]. Bulgarian statesman, born at Slavovitsa in Bulgaria on the 1st of September 1879. He was of peasant origin, but obtained a good education at Sofia and then at Halle in Germany. In 1902 he became editor of the newspaper of the Agrarian League and later entered the Sobranje. He soon acquired great influence among the peasants, and from the first took up an attitude of fearless opposition to King Ferdinand’s policy. In 1908 Stamboliiski headed the Agrarian protest against the Declaration of Independence, as being in the interest of the dynasty rather than of the people. In 1911 he made a violent speech in the Grand Sobranje, opposing the amendment to the constitution by which the King was given the right to make secret treaties, and in 1913 he openly accused the King of having brought about the calamitous war with Serbia. On September 17, 1915, Stamboliiski accompanied the other leaders of the Opposition to the palace, and, in a forcible speech and later in personal conversation, he warned the King with characteristic brusquerie that if he again plunged the country into war it would end in disaster and that he would lose his throne, if not his head. Stamboliiski was then condemned to imprisonment for life, and was kept in strict and painful confinement from September 30, 1915, for three years; he was, however, allowed access to books and spent much of his time in study and writing. On September 25, 1918, when imminent catastrophe compelled Bulgaria to seek an armistice, he was released, and, after a stormy interview with the King, went to the front, where a revolutionary movement among the troops was developing. He returned with the insurrectionary troops to Sofia, and order was restored only after much loss of life; Stamboliiski was obliged to go into hiding, even after the King’s abdication. The Government, however, soon realized that his help was essential in the critical state of the country, and he became Minister of Public Works in Todorov’s Cabinet. Although the Agrarians had not an actual majority after the election of August 1919, Stamboliiski became President of the Council and Minister for Foreign Affairs; on November 27th he had the courage to sign the Treaty of Neuilly on behalf of his country. In April 1920 the Cabinet was reconstructed, Stamboliiski remaining as Premier, Minister for War and of Foreign Affairs in a Cabinet composed entirely of his own followers.
