Dimitri Atanasescu Hagi Sterjio (; 16 May 1836 – 1907) was an Aromanian

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and later

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known for having been the teacher of the first Romanian school in the Balkans for the Aromanians, located at Trnovo ( or ), the place where he was born, which was then part of the

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Biography

In 1859, the principalities of

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and

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united and formed modern

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. This represented one of the first steps of the accomplishment of the Romanian national idea, which allowed Romanian intellectuals to shift their focus to other perceived issues. One of these was the

Aromanians The Aromanians () are an Ethnic groups in Europe, ethnic group native to the southern Balkans who speak Aromanian language, Aromanian, an Eastern Romance language. They traditionally live in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgari ...

, then viewed in Romania as "Romanians of the Balkans". Mobilization was called upon the Aromanians then residing in the new country and an Aromanian committee was established in

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thanks to the efforts of

Dimitrie Cozacovici Dimitrie Cozacovici (1790 – 31 August 1868) was a Romanian historian. He was one of the founding members of the Romanian Academy. Cozacovici was an Aromanian from Metsovo () and one of the main figures of the early Aromanian national movement ...

, an important figure of the early Aromanian national movement. This committee would issue several

manifesto A manifesto is a written declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party, or government. A manifesto can accept a previously published opinion or public consensus, but many prominent ...

s throughout the

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, then mostly part of the

. Atanasescu, then 25 years old, was an Aromanian

from the village of Trnovo ( or ) who was in a

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when he stumbled across one of the committee's manifestos. He would go to Bucharest on 20 July 1861 and begin his studies there with the aim of returning to his village and establishing a Romanian school in Trnovo, one of the main objectives of the committee being the creation of Romanian schools in the Balkans for the Aromanians. About 3 years later, Atanasescu, who had not even finished his studies yet, asked for financial support from the Romanian authorities, receiving a positive response from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cults and Public Instruction Dimitrie Bolintineanu. Thus, on 2 July 1864, the first Romanian school in the Balkans for the Aromanians was established by Atanasescu. However, some Greek nationalist and ecclesiastical figures saw this with bad eyes and began to persecute Atanasescu. In November of the same year, the Archbishop Benedict of Pelagonia arrested him and confiscated 1,000 of his Romanian manuals. Atanasescu was released shortly after and returned to Bucharest in 1865. To this the Romanian authorities responded by intensifying their support for Romanian schools for the Aromanians. As a consequence to these measures, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were up to 106 Romanian schools in the region of Macedonia with 300 teachers and 4,000 students. These schools taught their initial classes in Aromanian, but later switched to

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

for the more advanced ones. Many of the people who participated in this movement of establishing Romanian schools for Aromanians were ethnic Aromanians themselves, and not only Romanians.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Atanasescu, Dimitri 1836 births 1907 deaths Aromanian schoolteachers Romanian people of Aromanian descent Aromanians from the Ottoman Empire Schoolteachers from the Ottoman Empire People from Bitola Municipality Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to Romania

Biography

See also

References