Dimitri Atanasescu

Dimitri Atanasescu Hagi Sterjio (; 16 May 1836 – 1907) was an Aromanian tailor and later teacher 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 Ottoman Empire.

Biography In 1859, the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia united and formed modern Romania. 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, 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 Bucharest thanks to the efforts of Dimitrie Cozacovici, an important figure of the early Aromanian national movement.

This committee would issue several manifestos throughout the Balkans, then mostly part of the Ottoman Empire. Atanasescu, then 25 years old, was an Aromanian tailor from the village of Trnovo ( or ) who was in a coffeehouse in Istanbul 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.