ABOUT

The village of Bouf is nestled on the south end of a wide valley on the east side of the Baba (Grandmother) Mountain. The south end starts from Bigla Valley and extends about forty kilometres north. The west side of the village reaches to the valley above the city of Bitolia (Monastir). Across the high peak on Mount Pelister there is a plateau about three kilometres long and is used as a grazing pasture for the livestock of the village. Also on the plateau is located a stream which runs through the village of German and empties into Lake Prespa. Lake Prespa runs into Lake Ochrid which runs into the river Drina. The Drina River is connected with the Sava River and they both empty into the Danube River and both terminate in the Black Sea.

On the south end of the village near the Baba Mountain there is a little raised hill which is called Bakarno (copper) Gumno. At this point we have a seemingly long hill about fifteen kilometres running northeast down to Lerin lowlands. Also in this route is located Boufski Fort or Kula; guarding the main highway leading to the cities of Monastir, Florina, Korcha, and Yanina.

On the west side of our boundary is the hill Varteshka, which is the habitat of wild goats. Varteshka is the terminating point of the boundaries of the villages of Bouf, Rakovo, and German.

The first foundation of our village was laid near the village of what is now Kleshtina and here united with Bouf’s boundary is a place called Skala (ladder). The name of the place was and still is Grodishta. Grodishta means a rocky territory. From the west above Grodishta is our Mechka (bear) Hill. From the northwest is the same hill which is extended down from Varteshka, but at this point it is called Bitushky Hill. The hill is on an angle and there is a lowland which makes an excellent place for raising bees.

The majority of the living quarters in the village were built from stone and clay, and with thatched roofs.

In the year 1357 the Turks from Asia Minor invaded Europe covering Thrace, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia and reached almost to central Europe. After they occupied Macedonia they started to migrate and then settled in what is now known as Upper and Lower Kleshtina. The habitants of Upper Kleshtina were all Asiatic Mohammedans and Lower Kleshtina was inhabited by a few Mohammedans and the rest Bulgaro Christians.

From Grodishta to Upper Kleshtina is only two kilometres. Our people suffered at the hands of the new-comers. They were beaten and their livestock stolen. From day to day they feared for their lives. It was this maltreatment that forced our people to leave this territory and move across the river to a place called Pelihore Dragna. Here they started life anew, but it wasn’t to be for very long for again they were being persecuted by the Turks and forced to look for another settlement. This being their second and final movement, is the present site of the village. The new site was called Bouf, meaning owl, which was very common in that territory.

From the heights of the Baba Mountain there are three peaks situated in such a manner that they look like guards on top of the village. They are Kostrets, Chukata, and Chulevevts.

The wooded territories around the village contained such woods as pine, spruce, beech, oak, ash, hickory, and elm. Until 1886 all of the territory known as Prisovo was covered with small oak bush. After much labor the villagers succeeded in clearing the territory to make it suitable for farming. For many years they reaped an abundant crop of rye, wheat and barley.

Below the peaks of the mountains are many small springs and they form into small streams. They are Krilska (wing), Meshkovska, Laleshka, and Vlashkogumnska. Meshkovska and Laleshka run through the village; just outside the village they unite as one.

In the village we have fourteen springs used for drinking purposes and they are located at vantage points. In the village we have twenty-five flour mills run by water power and outside of the village on Vlashkogumnska Stream are located ten mills.

The main occupation of our ancestry was wood working. They made such articles as bowls, cups and spoons. They made their own plows, yokes and handles for tools.

Our rivers are stocked with three kinds of fish: carp, trout and another which we do not know the name of. The mountains are inhabited by such wild life as bears, deer. Fox, wild goats, jackals, rabbits and wolf. Hunting for birdlife in this region was excellent. The forests were plentiful with such birds as crow, eagle, hawk, bluejay, cuckoo, owl, pheasant and pigeon.

Our church was built in 1872 and it took three years to build it at a cost of three thousand golden Turkish liras, equivalent to thirteen thousand and three hundred dollars. In comparison of beauty and size there is no village in all Macedonia that has such a church. On such holidays as Easter and Christmas two thousand people could be accommodated.

In the period between 1908-1909 a census showed a population of three thousand and twenty-five people.

The foundation for the school was laid in August 1908, which took approximately a year to finish at a cost of three thousand golden Turkish liras.

The village is divided in seven wards or mahaly, namely: Varosh, Sarbino-Alabakova, Central Gorna, Vasilovska, and Dolna.

The village government consists of a mayor and a committee of seven: one member from each mahala. The mayor’s salary is fifteen gold liras per year and out of this amount he is obligated to pay his secretary six liras. The member from each mahala serves without pay. They are elected by the villages for a term of one year, every November 8th. Also on this date are elected for a year, a secretary and a cashier for the church. They also serve without salary.

During the Macedonian uprising of Aug. 2, 1903, the village was almost totally burned to the ground by the Turks.

The foregoing outline covers the period from 1357-1910. At present it is very difficult to emphasize and translate in words the conditions and turmoil that exist in that grand old village of Bouf. In short, it is no man’s land on account of the present political conditions that exist in Greek Macedonia. The village is deserted by the inhabitants. People had to flee for their lives because they are caught between the crossfire of the Partisans and government troops.

*The author has written two books. “The Sufferings of the Macedonian Under the Turkish Yoke” published in 1913 and “Bouf” to be published. He has been in the baking business for the past 32 years at 445 W. Hopocan Ave., Barberton, Ohio.

The article was published in “25th Anniversary of the Bouf’s Mutual Benefit Association.”

The author's grandson, Basil Stephanoff, reports that his grandfather's birth is recorded as 1880 and his year of passing 1970. The Bouf Mutual Benefit Association that he was a member of was founded in 1924. The article on Bouf was in their 25th anniversary booklet in 1949. Anastas Dimitroff first came to the United States in 1904 to St. Louis and returned to Macedonia in 1906. In 1910 he returned to America and went into the bakery business, operating his own bakery until 1942. He was ordained a deacon in the Orthodox church in 1939.

FAMILY NAMES

Here is a list of family names which at one point lived in Buf (although it is NEVER complete).

In the first column is the original Macedonian version of the name. In many cases individuals and families that have emigrated to other countries have had their names 'localized' to the local language (in Australia/Canada/USA they have been shorted - Ivanov to Evans, Branov to Brown). In the European countries they have adjusted to include "-ski" or "-sky" (examples are Popovski from Popov, Mangovsky from Mangos).

In the second column is how it would be written in Macedonian (NOTE: you will need to have the "MAC C Times" Truetype font installed on your system to properly read it. For more information on how to get this done please visit Biser Balkanski - How To Install Macedonian fonts on your computer .

The third column is the Hellenized (ie. "Greek") version assigned by the Greek government in the years which followed the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913. In a majority of the cases the changes did not appear until after 1920. In many cases as with the village names, an attempt was made to spell the last names in the Greek alphabet sound-for-sound but it was later decided to make them sound more "Greek" (examples were "Dimov" to "Dimopoulos", "Iliev" to "Iliadis").

For those unaware, the Treaty of Bucharest "divided the spoils" of Macedonia amongst the three neighbouring countries - Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia. Amongst the worst of what was to follow happened in Greece - family names were given "Greek" versions, village names were renamed, churches were re-Christened under Greek saints, tombstones and epitaphs along with any visible signs of the Macedonian language were erased and re-written in Greek.

POPULATION

HISTORY

MY VILLAGE BOUF

The name Bouf (English translation “owl”) was given to the village by the Turks, who occupied the region for a long time. The story is that when they first arrived in the area they saw many owls, so they called the village “Bouf”.

Bouf is one of the larger villages in the region of Aegean Macedonia and is located between the two large mountains of Baba and Bigla. It is 10 kms south-west from the Greek city Lerin and 28 kms from the city Bitola, in the Republic of Macedonia. It is surrounded with the following villages – (east) with Gorna Kleshtina, Kladobari I Kabasnica (west) with Psoderi and German (south) with Ramna Shuma and Armensko and (north) with Rakovo and Bitusha.

In 1946 the village had 325 homes with 2,250 people. It had two rivers, Laleshka and Laycharska with many other smaller rivers flowing near the village: Raychenska, Vlashkogumno, Osoy, Selski Rechishcha, Tayma and Priso. All these rivers joined to become Sinivirskata, which continued to flow through the village Gorno Kleshtina, then into the Eleshka then Crna and from here it flowed into Vardar, which continued towards the Greek city of Solun (Thessalonica) and finally into the Aegean Sea.

The Bouf people were hard working and they were also generous people because they always helped each other in difficult times. In 1875 the villagers built the first water system, about 5kms long and in 1907 they built the school, with a basement and two floors, which was attended by the young prep children where they were taught in Greek language, even though at home they only spoke Macedonian.

The village was predominately an agricultural village with most people working on the land and Bouf was famous for the “binde” potato. There were also many businesses: 4 cafes, 1 bakery, 4 cake shops, 5 shoe repairers, 2 blacksmiths and 1 shop for cottons and buttons. And because Bouf was built on a steep landscape the normal method of transport was with horses and donkeys.

LINKS

• Facebook group - Buf, Lerinsko
• Google maps - Buf
• My Partisan Life, by Kosta Alabakov
• Wikipedia - Buf, Lerinsko

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