Stefan Stambolov was born on January 30, 1854 in Tarnovo (now Veliko Tarnovo). He studied in his hometown and at the Theological Seminary in Odessa. It is inextricably linked with the liberation movement and with the future destiny of Bulgaria. Participated in the Staro Zagora Uprising of 1875.
170 years since the birth of the great Bulgarian revolutionary, politician and statesman Stefan Stambolov
Stefan Stambolov was born on January 30, 1854 in Tarnovo (now Veliko Tarnovo). He studied in his hometown and at the Theological Seminary in Odessa. It is inextricably linked with the liberation movement and with the future destiny of Bulgaria. Participated in the Staro Zagora Uprising of 1875. One of the main initiators of the establishment of the Giurgiiv Revolutionary Committee, who decided to organize a new uprising in Bulgaria in the spring of 1876 (the April Uprising). Apostle of the First (Tarnov) revolutionary district.
During the Liberation War (1877-1878) he was a correspondent for Russian newspapers. At the age of 25, Stefan Stambolov entered the political life of the Principality of Bulgaria and made one of the most dizzying and controversial political careers. He participated as a guest in the Constituent Assembly in Tarnovo in 1879, and in 1880 he was elected a deputy in the National Assembly without having the necessary age qualification for this.
One of the organizers of the "Unity" committees, through which the people express their opposition to the decisions of the Berlin Congress, which divided Bulgaria.
In 1884-1886 he was the chairman of the National Assembly and appeared as a decisive and uncompromising leader on the Bulgarian political scene. In 1885 St. Stambolov addresses the warning to Prince Alexander I: "Either recognition of the Union or abdication!" Prime Minister (1887-1894), founder and leader of the People's Liberal Party, from 1886, after the abdication of Prince Alexander I, until May 17, 1894.
Stefan Stambolov is the most influential and powerful person in the Principality of Bulgaria. Of all his actions, the one with the greatest impact on Bulgarian history is the making of Prince Ferdinand Saxe-Coburg-Gotha as Prince of Bulgaria. Years later, devastated, Stambolov will admit: "Bulgaria will forgive me for everything, but for the fact that I brought that one and enthroned him in our country - I don't believe that it will forgive me either in this world or in the next." As Prime Minister, he is distinguished by dictatorial management methods. One of the most significant statesmen in our modern history, Stefan Stambolov leads a far-sighted economic policy and pushes legislative acts to accelerate the country's economic development.
A positive result of his foreign policy was the consent received from the Ottoman Empire for the appointment of Bulgarian bishops in the dioceses of Skopje and Ohrid. At the beginning of July 1895, on his way out of the Union Club in the center of Sofia, he was attacked by hired killers and hacked to death. He died a few days later.
Stefan Stambolov is undoubtedly one of the most controversial and brightest political figures among the builders of New Bulgaria.
Text: Valentina Zadgorska, PhD
