Petrov Family
of Salonica, Polin, Smol, Gevgelija.
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The Petrov family of Salonica. Back: Sultana (Tana), Dimitar (Mito)
Petrov and, at front, Dimitar's stepmother Velika and Sultana and Dimitar's
child Zhivko, who died when he was five years old.
Sultana and Dimitar lost three boys when they were very young: the
twins Petar and Pavle, and Zhivko. They then had Marika (Mara) and Snezhana
(Zhana).
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Dimitar Petrov, first on right. Others unknown.
Dimitar Petrv was born in the village of Smol, Kukush region, in 1883.
He became a war refugee in 1913, during the Second Balkan War. From
what the family knows, they were working on the field when a man came
from another village telling them that the Greeks were burning Macedonian
villages and killing Macedonian people. They didn’t have time to
take anything with them, they just started running north. For a while
he lived in Pirot in Serbia, then they went to Pleven in Bulgaria.
After the end of the First World War Dimitar came back to Macedonia,
but he couldn’t go to his village, as for first time in Macedonian
history there was a border two kilometres south of Gevgelija. He had
to stay in Gevgelija, the closest town to his village.
Dimitar Petrov died in 1964. He never saw his village again, as the
Greeks did not allow him.
Dimitar's father, Petar, was from Smol. He was mobilized by the French
army and he died in Marseille, France.
Dimitar's mother, Marika, died very young. She was from the village
of H’rsovo, Kukush region. Petar then married Velika (see photos
at top and bottom).
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Sultana, called Tana, first from right, in Solun 1910 with her girl
friends. Sultana Ashikova was born in 1892 in Dojran (at that time Polin).
She became an orphan when she was nine, her invalid brother Dimitar
was seven and her youngest sister Katerina was only four years old.
She grow up in Solun, where she worked for a German family.
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Sultana, Gevgelija, 1919.
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Velika.
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The wedding of the Bardarovi family in Gevgelija, 1936. Dimitar and
Sultana are Godparents (kumovi). All of the people in the photo are
refugees from Aegean Macedonia south of Gevgelija: Smol, Barovitsa,
Shlopintsi, Machukovo, Seovo, Enidje Vardar…
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Marika, daughter of Dimitar and Sultana, as a teacher
in a village on Kozhuf mountain. It was the end of 1944, and the Macedonian
part in Yugoslavia became free, but they didn’t have Macedonian
teachers. The Macedonian Republican government mobilized young people
of ages 17 to 18 and organized teachering courses for 3-6 months. The
new teachers were sent to the cities and villages.
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The board of the first Macedonian teachers' council in
Gevgelija, 1948. Marika (Mara) Petrova is in the first row in the middle.
Source: Liljana Ristova
