THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE DONOR ATANAS BLIZNAKOV IN THE
MONOGRAPHS OF SLAVE KATIN
D’mbeni, the native village of Atanas Bliznakov, which is located Kostur Region, Aegean Macedonia, most probably got this name because there used to be a dense oak forest in the village and the surrounding area. The legend, which was handed down from generation to generation also says that once upon a time a few villagers from Saynovo, in Kostur Region, lost their beef cattle in the neighboring woods.
After searching for a long time they found their cattle around a large spring from which fresh, cold mountain water sprang. This spring was among the high oak trees. These villagers found this picturesque area suitable and later some of them settled there. After some time, families began to settle here.
They came not only from Saynovo but also from Sveta Petka, Banica, Berik, Gorno Sliveni, Pandatur and later from other neighborhoods. Gradually, this place transformed into a large neighborhood around which the dense oak forests raised high in the sky. That’s why they named it D’mbeni (a derivative of the noun ‘dab’ meaning oak in Macedonian).
The new settlers transformed the spring into a fountain, naming the surrounding area Fountain Neighborhood while the area populated on the rocky terrain was called Rocky Neighborhood.
How many centuries has the village D’mbeni existed? For the time being, it is established that it was mentioned by its original name in the 1445 census of the Kostur vilayet as a settlement consisting of 13 Christian families. In the later census of 1569 in the Ottoman Empire, the village D’mbeni was registered as a village consisting of 125 Christian families and 4 Muslim houses. In this record the village was recorded by the name Dambeni.
Through his linguistic analysis and comparison with the Slavic language group, M. Sokolovski has classified this name in the context of the word ‘dab’ (oak, i.e. Quercus), but he also searched for an association with the Old Church Slavonic words, stressing the possible connection with the word ‘D’zba’ which refers to ‘water’, ‘valley’, or ‘hill’.
A bridge in Dmbeni
It is certain that D’mbeni existed many centuries before these censuses. Documentary pieces of evidence are the hundreds of original Macedonian toponyms, wonderful names of hills and localities which by themselves speak for the rich traditions of the inhabitants of D’mbeni. In a chronicle of Joan Skilizi we read:
“… From these four brothers, David soon died and he was buried between Kostur and Prespa, in the so-called Good Oak trees….”
We know this happened in 976. Is it in Zlostana, about 3 km west of the village, that residents of D’mbeni connect to the death of Samuil’s brother? Was ‘Good Oaks’ changed into ‘Evil-happened’ (the translation of ‘Zlostana’)?
The village D’mbeni is located in the north-west part of Kostur Region, Aegean Macedonia. It stretches over a granite massif, 900 meters long, named Malimady which is a section of the mountain Vinjari.
It is 20 km from Kostur and 25 km from Bilišta, a town in the Republic of Albania. It borders the village Breznica to the north, across the mountain Vinjari; it borders the villages Gabreš and Drenoveni to the north-east, across the mountain Kostolata; it borders the villages Šešteovo, Aposkep and Županišta to the east, across the mountains of Tumba, Kiryaka and Trojnica; it borders the village Kosinec to the south-east, and the village Smrdeš across the mountain Arveniko.
All these villages were, and some of them are still, populated purely with Macedonians, except for the village Sliveni (populated with Madziri who were new settlers from Asia Minor), while the villages Četirok and Sveta Nedela (Holy Sunday) are populated with a mixed population – both Macedonians and Madziri (a non-Macedonian population settled in this region after the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in 1932).
To be continued
By SLAVE KATIN
