Dimitri Atanasescu Hagi Sterjio[1] (Romanian: Dimitrie Atanasescu Hagi Steriu; 16 May 1836 – 1907) 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 (Tãrnuva or Tãrnova), the place where he was born, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.

Atanasescu, then 25 years old, was an Aromanian tailor from the village of Trnovo (Tãrnuva or Tãrnova) who was in a coffeehouse in Istanbul when he stumbled across one of the committee's manifestos.

[2] About 3 years later, Atanasescu, who had not even finished his studies yet, asked for financial support from the Romanian authorities, receiving a positive response from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cults and Public Instruction Dimitrie Bolintineanu.

However, some Greek nationalist and ecclesiastical figures saw this with bad eyes and began to persecute Atanasescu.

[2] As a consequence to these measures, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were up to 106 Romanian schools in the region of Macedonia with 300 teachers and 4,000 students.