About Aposkep
The village of Aposkep is in the Kosturko region of Aegean Macedonia. It was renamed to Απόσκεπος when the Greek government was given Aegean Macedonia as part of the
Treaty of Bucharest. It is located about 4km NNW from the town of Kostur (Katsoria, Greece), and about 1km NW of Lake Kostur.
According to Wikipedia they try hard to deny the existence of a majority Macedonian-speaking population :
"In 1945, Greek Foreign Minister Ioannis Politis ordered the compilation of demographic data regarding the Prefecture of Kastoria. The village Aposkepos had a total
of 379 inhabitants, and was populated by 340 Slavophones with a Bulgarian national consciousness."
Family Names of Aposkep Inhabitants
Here is a list of family names which at one point lived in Aposkep (although it is NEVER complete).
In the first column is the original Macedonian version of the name. In many cases individuals and families that have emigrated to other countries have had their
names 'localized' to the local language (in Australia/Canada/USA they have been shorted - Ivanov to Evans, Branov to Brown). In the European countries they have
adjusted to include "-ski" or "-sky" (examples are Popovski from Popov, Mangovsky from Mangos).
In the second column is how it would be written in Macedonian (NOTE: you will need to have the "MAC C Times" Truetype font installed on your system to properly read it. For
more information on how to get this done please visit Biser Balkanski - How To Install Macedonian fonts on your computer .
The third column is the Hellenized (ie. "Greek") version assigned by the Greek government in the years which followed the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913. In a majority of the cases
the changes did not appear until after 1920. In many cases as with the village names, an attempt was made to spell the last names in the Greek alphabet sound-for-sound but it
was later decided to make them sound more "Greek" (examples were "Dimov" to "Dimopoulos", "Iliev" to "Iliadis").
For those unaware, the Treaty of Bucharest "divided the spoils" of Macedonia amongst the three neighbouring countries - Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia.
Amongst the worst of what was to follow happened in Greece - family names were given "Greek" versions, village names were renamed, churches were re-Christened
under Greek saints, tombstones and epitaphs along with any visible signs of the Macedonian language were erased and re-written in Greek.
| Original Macedonian Name | Po Makedonski | Hellenized Version |
|---|
| Dineff |
|
|
| Zisov |
|
|
Thank you to everybody who has contributed to the various lists. If you would like to add your family
please email me at tedn@macedonianvillages.com and specify the village and a list of family names.