Gornichevo
An excerpt from the book "Lerin in Mourning" by Atanas Tane Naumovski found on the website Pollitecon Publications
The village of Gornichevo was forcibly renamed by the Greek government to Kela. It is about 26 kilometres east from Lerin on the road that leads from Banitsa to Voden. It lies at 21 degrees 41 minutes longitude and 40 degrees 47 minutes latitude and 940 metres above sea level. It has an area of about 58 square kilometres.
The village borders the following: to the north the mountain Golem Vrv, to the northeast the once large villager Chergan, to the southwest the villages Tserovo and Banitsa, and to the west Zabrdeni.
Before the start of the Greek Civil War in 1945 about 1,580 residents lived in the village who were of Macedonian background. They were employed in raising livestock, agriculture and timber getting and other essential activities.
The residents actively took part in the organization of NOF and the armed forces of DAG led by the KPG with more than 200 active fighters. 36 fighters gave their lives.
They were : Trajan Boglev, Kole Volchinov, Jane Volchinov, Gele Volchinov, Rina Volchinova, Harishi Geridov, Tashko Geridov, Icho Girichov,
Doncho M. Gruev, Tsotsa M. Grueva, Lako P. Gruevski, Kile D. Dishliov, Petse Dorev Zhezhov, Vane Zhakov, Tina M. Karadafova, Stavre K. Karuaulov, Pandil V. Klandzhov,
Dine Krchov, Lambo P. Nikov, Andrea Poptashov, Gele P. Poptashov, Micho P. Poptashov, Kitse Projov, Vane Rashov, Petse Tashe Romov, Fika Dine Romova , Pancho Hristo Stangolov, Kitse Stnagolov, Pandil Tashkov, Gjorgji A. Totsev, Tsile M. Totsev, Kitse M. Totsev, ,Bladzhe M. Totsev,
Tashe Najdo Shishkov, Micho D. Shongov, Kile D. Shopov
The details of the fallen fighters were obtained from Kole Totsev from the village of Gornichevo.
Of all of the fighters named above who gave their young lives, 32 were men and 4 were women.
After the Greek Civil War and after the great emigration and forced emigration from Gornichevo, the number of residents fell. This can be seen from the official census in 1991 in Greece according to which there were 980 residents in the village.
Family Names of Gornichevo Inhabitants
Here is a list of family names which at one point lived in Gornichevo (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 |
|---|
|
|
Ioannis
|
|
|
Sapountzis
|
|
|
Tsoutsoula
|
|
|
Sipidias
|
|
|
Kirkopoulos
|
|
|
Kircos/Kirkos
|
|
|
Zianis
|
| Boglev |
Boglev |
|
| Dishliov |
Di{liov |
|
| Dorev |
Dorev |
|
| Geridov |
Geridov |
|
| Girichov |
Giri~ov |
|
| Gruev |
Gruev |
|
| Gruevski |
Gruevski |
|
| Karadafova |
Karadafova |
|
| Karaulov |
|
|
| Klandzhov |
Klanxov |
|
| Krchov |
Kr~ov |
|
| Markov |
Markov |
Marcos/Markos/Markopoulos
|
| Nikov |
Nikov |
|
| Poptashov |
Popta{ov |
|
| Projov |
Projov |
|
| Rashov |
Ra{ov |
|
| Romov |
Romov |
Romas
|
| Shishkov |
[i{kov |
|
| Shongov |
[ongov |
|
| Shopov |
[opov |
|
| Stangolov |
Stangolov |
Stangolis
|
| Tashkov |
Ta{kov |
|
| Totsev |
Tocev |
|
| Trajkov |
Trajkov |
|
| Volchinov |
Vol£inov |
Voltsinis
|
| Zhakov |
Æakov |
|
| Zhezhov |
Æe`ov |
|
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.
History of Gornichevo
taken from Wikipedia
The village was first mentioned in an Ottoman defter of 1468, where it is listed under the name of Gorničevo and described as a small settlement of thirty households. A second defter of 1481 records that the number had increased by only three households.
Around 1840, the land of the village was forcibly seized by the Muslim notable Ilyaz Pasha and it was turned into a homestead. Later, the local residents were able to redeem their property.
In the book “Ethnographie des Vilayets d'Adrianople, de Monastir et de Salonique”, published in Constantinople in 1878, that reflects the statistics of the male population in 1873, Gornitchévo was noted as a village with 160 households, 522 Bulgarian and 50 Romani inhabitants.
Following the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), the population decreased and 3–4 hundred families remained in the village.[7] Kella had 877 inhabitants in 1981.[8] In fieldwork done by anthropologist Riki Van Boeschoten in late 1993, Kella was populated by Slavophones.[8] The Macedonian language was used by people of all ages, both in public and private settings, and as the main language for interpersonal relationships.[8] Some elderly villagers had little knowledge of Greek.
In the diaspora, villagers are located in Skopje (a hundred families), Toronto in Canada (over a hundred families) and higher numbers in Melbourne, Australia.[7] During the early years of the Macedonian naming dispute, internal splits occurred among the Kella community in Melbourne with the majority identifying as Macedonian and a minority as Greek.
The Macedonian Conflict : Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World
An excerpt from the book "The Macedonian Conflict : Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World" by Loring M. Danforth
On a hot summer evening in January 1992, members of the Kelli Family Association were holding a dance at the parish hall of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Preston, a working-class suburb north of Melbourne. The village of Kelli lies in the district of Fiorina in northern Greece at the foot of Mount Kaimaktsalan, whose jagged peaks form the border between Greece and the former Yugoslavia. Three or four hundred families still live in Kelli; the rest have left. After the Greek Civil War a hundred families settled in Skopje. Now there are over a hundred families from Kelli living in Toronto, and even more in Melbourne. The men collecting tickets for the dance were upset. It was already nine o'clock, and only forty people had arrived. Several years ago three hundred people would come to the Kelli dances. But then "the worm entered the village." Some villagers started saying they were not Greek; they "became Macedonians." People started arguing about whether to play Greek or Macedonian music at village dances and whether to send out invitations to the dances in Greek or Macedonian. But the issue that really split the village was whether to use Kelli (the Greek name) or Gornicevo (the Macedonian name) in the official title of the village association. That was what finally destroyed the village. Inside the church hall, whose walls were decorated with posters of heroes of the Greek War of Independence, forty people—couples and families—sat at long tables talking and eating olives and cheese. A disk jockey sat on stage playing Greek music over a loudspeaker system, but no one was dancing. It was early in the evening; the men at the door hoped that more people would come soon. That very same evening the Gornicevo-Kelli Community was holding its first dinner dance at Eden Receptions right next to the big Goodyear Tyre and Rubber factory in the nearby suburb of Thomastown. There were about 250 people present, some of them from other villages near Fiorina. They were eating dinner at tables arranged around a large dance floor. After dinner the band—a singer, backed up by an electric guitar, clarinet, a keyboard, and a bouzouki—began to play. The band played some old Macedonian folk songs about driving the Turks out of Macedonia and some new "patriotic" songs about "the children of Macedonia" who were separated from their families and live scattered around the world, as well as a few popular American songs like "Long Tall Sally," and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling." Late in the evening during one of the "patriotic" songs a group of men knelt in a circle around a man named Panko. They clapped for him as he danced intensely, whirling a red handkerchief over his head. Panko had been born in Gornicevo during the Greek Civil War, just before his parents, who were accused of supporting the Communists, fled the village. His parents died several years later, and Panko grew up alone in Skopje. He had lived all over eastern Europe; he had even spent seven years in the Philippines. A few months after he came to Melbourne, he attended the big picnic that the Macedonian community holds every year. There he met someone from Gornicevo and learned that he had cousins living in Melbourne he had never met before. "I'm flying," he said. "I have two hearts now, because I've found my cousins."