ABOUT

About Besfina
taken from the book Lerin in Mourning by Atanas Tane Naumovski available courtesy of Pollitecon Publications

Besfina had its name forcibly changed by the Greek Government to Sfika. It is a part of the Lerin region about 30 kilometres southwest of the town. It was a mountain village located on the slopes of Gorbech at 21 degrees 09 minutes longitude and 40 degrees 43 minutes latitude, 1,390 metres above sea level and with an area of 15 square kilometres.

The village borders with the following: to the west with Drenovo which as a village no longer exists, to the northwest with Bukovik, to the northeast with Trnaa and to the southeast with Rulja.

Before the start of the Greek Civil War in 1945 more than 294 Macedonians residents lived in the village. The residents were employed in raising livestock and agriculture.

During the Greek Civil War the residents actively took part in the organization of NOF and the armed forces of DAG with more than 100 active fighters. 26 gave their lives.

They were:

1. Angelevski, Atanas
2. Argirovska, Stefana
3. Vanov, Vasil
4. Vanova, Stojna
5. Grozdanov, Kirjako
6. Dukovski, Petre
7. Gjeorgievski, Kosta
8. Kalkova, Ristana
9. Kajkovski, Hristo
10. Kapovski, Spiro
11. Kirovski, Niko
12. Krstevski, Iljo
13. Nicheva, Sevda
14. Nichova, Gana
15. Nichovski, Jovan
16. Popovski, R Tode
17. Popovski, R Trajko
18. Popovski, Stojan
19. Skenderi, Risto
20. Skenderi, Jani
21. Skenderi, Gjorgi - 2 brothers
22. Skenderov, Spiro
23. Skenderovski, L Mitre
24. Fotevski, Risto
25. Cholakovski, Gjorgi
26. Cholakovski, Lazo

21 of the above were men and 5 women.

After the Greek Civil War and the forced emigration from the village, there is not a single resident in the village. In the official census in Greece in 1991 it is treated as a former settlement.

FAMILY NAMES

Here is a list of family names which at one point lived in Besfina (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.

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