The Bulgarian coup d'état of 1923, also known as the 9 June coup d'état , was a coup d'état

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 in Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 implemented by armed forces under General Ivan Valkov's Military Union on the eve of 9 June 1923. Hestitantly legitimated by a decree of Tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

 Boris III of Bulgaria

Boris III of Bulgaria

Boris III the Unifier, Tsar of Bulgaria , originally Boris Klemens Robert Maria Pius Ludwig Stanislaus Xaver , son of Ferdinand I, came to the throne in 1918 upon the abdication of his father, following the defeat of the Kingdom of Bulgaria during World War I...

, it overthrew the government of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union

Bulgarian Agrarian National Union

Bulgarian Agrarian National Union also tiranslated to English as Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union is a political party devoted to representing the causes of the Bulgarian peasantry. It was most powerful between 1900 and 1923. In practice, it was an agrarian movement...

 headed by Aleksandar Stamboliyski

Aleksandar Stamboliyski

Aleksandar 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...

 and replaced it with one under Aleksandar Tsankov

Aleksandar Tsankov

Aleksander Tsolov Tsankov was a leading Bulgarian right wing politician between the two World Wars.-Biography:...

.

In several places, the coup met with the opposition of agrarian

Agrarianism

Agrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...

 activists and individual communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 volunteers, an event known in Bulgarian historiography as the June Uprising

June uprising

June uprising might refer to:* June Rebellion, anti-monarchist uprising of Parisian students from June 5 to June 6, 1832* June Days Uprising, French workers' revolt from June 23 to June 25, 1848...

. The uprising was largely unorganized in its essence, lacking a common leadership and a nation-wide radius of action. Despite large-scale revolutionary activity by the rebels around Pleven

Pleven

Pleven is the seventh most populous city in Bulgaria. Located in the northern part of the country, it is the administrative centre of Pleven Province, as well as of the subordinate Pleven municipality...

 (which they managed to capture), Pazardzhik

Pazardzhik

Pazardzhik is a city situated along the banks of the Maritsa river, Southern Bulgaria. It is the capital of Pazardzhik Province and centre for the homonymous Pazardzhik Municipality...

 and Shumen

Shumen

Shumen is the tenth-largest city in Bulgaria and capital of Shumen Province. In the period 1950–1965 it was called Kolarovgrad, after the name of the communist leader Vasil Kolarov...

, it was quickly crushed by the new government.

The Bulgarian Communist Party

Bulgarian Communist Party

The Bulgarian Communist Party was the communist and Marxist-Leninist ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 1990 when the country ceased to be a communist state...

 did not take part in the June Uprising, as it regarded both the uprising and the coup as "struggle for power between the urban and rural bourgeoisie". The party preferred a stance of neutrality; however, under Comintern

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

 pressure, it organized the unsuccessful September Uprising

September Uprising

The September Uprising was an armed insurgency staged in September 1923 by the Bulgarian Communist Party under Comintern pressure, as an attempt to overthrow the Democratic Accord government of Bulgaria that had come to power with the coup d'état of June 9. Besides its communist base, the...

later in 1923.