Bukovo is a village in the Bitola municipality approximately three kilometers distance from the city ofBitola in North Macedonia. Not unlike most other larger villages in the country, locals typically distinguish an "upper" and "lower" quarter. Historically, the latter developed from the expansion of the former. The neighborhood Bukovski Livadi comprises ten residential streets and is located at the entrance to the village; often considered a part of Bukovo, it is actually a suburb of the City of Bitola. The village collectively celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration as its local holiday — referred to as "the Day" — after the village's eponymous monastery. The celebration of Lazarus Saturday is also upheld devotedly, a tradition which has very nearly died out in the rest of the country. The village is famous for its crushed red pepper or chilli flakes which it is credited with inventing. The local variety of chili pepper is known as "буковец". The name of the village—or a derivative of it—is now used as a name for crushed red pepper in general in a number of Southeast European languages: "буковка", "bukovka" and "μπούκοβο".
History
Local legend has it that the first families to settle in Bukovo had come from a much older village called Neoljani which was completed destroyed in a firestorm. The discovery of the ruins of a church—attested in statistical documents—at the base of nearby mountains are usually cited as proof of this. Similarly, it is widely claimed that the upper maala of the village was settled by people from the now long abandoned village of Magarevo and the lower maala by people from the abandoned village of Selište. In both cases, the ruins of houses can be found in adjacent areas. Others, however, believe that the original settlers were the fleeing residents of the ancient city of Heraclea following its devastating earthquake. During its most prosperous period, the village had approximately 5,000 residents and over 600 students enrolled in its grammar school. As a municipality in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Bukovo was twice visited by King Alexander I as the "most orderly" village in all of Yugoslavia. Throughout the 20th century, many residents left for Australia, the United States, Canada and areas of Western Europe in search of work. There are approximately 2,000 natives of Bukovo in the ethnic Macedonian diaspora, more than 800 of whom live in Rochester, New York, affectionately referred to as "Bukovo City" by Macedonians who live there. A large number of people from Bukovo have also settled in Richmond, Australia. The Bukovo Monastery was once an important cultural center where monks would translate and copy sacred texts into the local vernacular. Time had deteriorated the monastery building leading residents to renovate it during the 2000s.
