About Bel Kamen
taken from the book Lerin in Mourning by Atanas Tane Naumovski available courtesy of
Pollitecon Publications
The village Bel Kamen had its name changed forcibly to Drosopigi. It is a part of the Lerin region about 15 kilometres south of the town. It is in a thick forest on Vicho Mountain. It is 21 degrees 27 minutes longitude and 40 degrees 40 minutes latitude, 1,190 metres above sea level, and has an area of 25 kilometres squared.
The village borders to the north the village Gorno Kotori, to the west Lagen, northeast with Negovan and southeast with Ajtos and Gorentsi.
Before the start of the Greek Civil War it had more than 770 residents, of whom a quarter were of Macedonian background and the rest were Aranuti-Albanians.
The residents were employed in raising livestock and building with very few in agriculture, trades and other occupations.
Family Names of Bel Kamen Inhabitants
Here is a list of family names which at one point lived in Bel Kamen (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 |
|---|
| We have no data of family names for the village : Bel Kamen |
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.