Aleksandar Stoimenov Stamboliyski ( March 11, 1879 – June 14, 1923) is the prime minister of Bulgaria from 1919 until 1923.

Stamboliyski is a member of the Agrarian Union, an agrarian peasant movement that is not allied to the monarchy, and edits their newspaper.

He opposes the country's participation in the First World War and its support for the Central Powers.

In a famous incident during 1914 Stamboliyski's patriotism is challenged when members of the Bulgarian parliament question whether he is Bulgarian or not, to which he shouts 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 (Yugoslav)!".

He is court-martialed and sentenced to life in prison in 1915 due to his opposition to Bulgaria joining the Central Powers in thew war.

n 1918, with the defeat of Bulgaria as an ally of the Central Powers, Tsar Ferdinand abdicates in favor of his son Tsar Boris III, who releases Stamboliyski from prison.

He joins the government in January, 1919, and is appointed prime minister on October 14 of this year.

On March 20, 1920, the Agrarian Union wins national elections and Stamboliyski is confirmed as prime minister.

kDuring his term in office, Stamboliyski makes a concerted effort to improve relations with the rest of Europe.

This results in Bulgaria becoming the first of the defeated states to join the League of Nations in 1920.[

Though popular with the peasants, he antagonizes the middle class and military.

Many consider  him to be a virtual dictator or a peasant thug.

He is ousted in a military coup in June 1923.

He attempts to raise a rebellion against the new government, but is captured by the IMRO, who detest him for renouncing Bulgarian claims on the territory of Macedonia, is brutally tortured, and killed.

Born to a farmer, Aleksandar Stamboliyski spent his childhood in his birth village of Slavovitsa, the same village where he will later gather several thousand insurrectionists from the region and advance against the town of Pazardzhik.

However, before this grand counter-insurgence is to transpire, Stamboliyski had had to work himself up the ranks of the nation's political scene as the leader of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union.

Although successful in his political ambition of acquiring the highest political office of the state, the unstable political atmosphere of Bulgaria in the early inter-war years ultimately contributed to Stamboliyski's demise.