Dimitri Atanasescu founds the first Romanian school in the Balkans for the Aromanians in Trnovo, in the Ottoman Empire (now in North Macedonia).

Dimitri Atanasescu Hagi Sterjio was an Aromanian tailor and later teacher known for having been the teacher of the first Romanian school in the Balkans for the Aromanians, located at Trnovo, the place where he was born, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.

The Aromanians are an ethnic group native to the southern Balkans who speak Aromanian, an Eastern Romance language. They traditionally live in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, northern and central Greece, and North Macedonia, and can currently be found in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, south-western and eastern North Macedonia, northern and central Greece, southern Serbia, and south-eastern Romania. An Aromanian diaspora living outside these places also exists. The Aromanians are known by several other names, such as "Vlachs" or "Macedo-Romanians".

Trnovo is a village in the municipality of Bitola, North Macedonia. The village is 7.53 kilometers away from Bitola, which is the second largest city in the country.

North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the north. It constitutes approximately the northern third of the larger geographical region of Macedonia. Skopje, the capital and largest city, is home to a quarter of the country's population of over 1.83 million. The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians, a South Slavic people. Albanians form a significant minority at around 25%, followed by Turks, Roma, Serbs, Bosniaks, Aromanians and a few other minorities.