Sava Mutkurov

Sava Atanasov Mutkurov (Bulgarian: Сава Атанасов Муткуров) (16 December [O.S. 4 December] 1852 – 15 March [O.S. 3 March] 1891) was a Bulgarian officer (Major General) and politician. One of only three recipients of the Order of Bravery 1st grade, he was among the chief architects of the Bulgarian unification (1885) and, as an officer in the young Bulgarian Army, one of its defendants in the Serbo–Bulgarian War (1885). He also served as one of the regents of the Principality of Bulgaria after Prince Alexander of Battenberg's abdication (1886–1887) and was Minister of War in Stefan Stambolov's government (1887–1891).

Early years and Bulgarian unification

Sava Mutkurov was born in the city of Tarnovo in the central Danubian Plain (then part of the Ottoman Empire, today in north central Bulgaria) in 1852. He studied for two years at the Military Medical Academy in the imperial capital Constantinople (Istanbul), but graduated instead from the Cadet Infantry School in the Russian city of Odessa in 1872. As a soldier in the Imperial Russian Army, Mutkurov participated in the Serbo–Turkish War of 1876 along with other Bulgarian volunteers. He was also involved in the Russo–Turkish War of 1877–1878 which brought about the Liberation of Bulgaria. During that war, he was the commander of a company in the 54th Minsk Infantry Regiment of the Russian Army.