Eastern Rumelia
After the Liberation of Bulgaria and the establishment of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia in 1878, Mutkurov settled in Eastern Rumelia, where he joined the provincial police or militia. He served first with the 1st Plovdiv Battalion and thereafter with the general staff. As an eminent man of arms in Eastern Rumelia, Mutkurov was one of the main leaders of the Bulgarian unification on 6 September 1885, the bloodless revolution that united the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia. Mutkurov joined the Bulgarian Secret Revolutionary Central Committee which stood behind the unification. At the time a captain, along with Dimitar Rizov he was envoyed to the Bulgarian monarch Prince Alexander of Battenberg. The two were received by the prince in Shumen, where they notified him of the forthcoming events and requested his approval. The prince did not wish to be publicly involved in an anti-Ottoman revolution, and is unclear whether he at all believed a revolution was likely to break out in Eastern Rumelia so soon. During the revolution, Mutkurov commanded some of the troops that surrounded the residence of the provincial governor Gavril Krastevich and demanded his resignation.