Lešok (, ) is a village in the municipality of Tearce, North Macedonia.
History Lešok is attested in the 1467/68 Ottoman tax registry (defter) for the Nahiyah of Kalkandelen. The village had a total of 200 Christian households, 11 bachelors and 22 widows.Турски документи за историјата на македонскиот народ кн.4, Методија Соколоски, д-р Александар Стојановски, Скопје 1971
According to a 1467-68 Ottoman defter, the inhabitants of Lešok exhibited mostly Slavic and minority Albanian anthroponymy. Some families had mixed Slavic-Albanian anthroponymy. The settlement had two Orthodox Albanian priests who served in the Slavic-speaking church.
This village is well known for its monastery where operated the cleric and writer Kiril Pejcinović. The monastery had a library and Lešok was a literature and educational center. Because of that, at the end of the 19th century, a feud started growing between the Bulgarian and Serbian churches regarding the ownership of the monastery, with both institutions asserting their claims to it. According to the monks residing there in 1901, the abbot Ezekiel—who identified as a "pure-blooded Macedonian" and opposed the Serbian and Bulgarian agitators—was ultimately murdered in 1898 by "foreign agitators".
According to the Bulgarian ethnographer Vasil Kanchov, in 1900 the village was inhabited by 540 Bulgarians.Vasil Kanchov (1900). Macedonia: Ethnography and Statistics. Sofia. p. 210.
According to the German historian and geographer Wilfried Krallert, in his map published in 1941, in 1931 Lešok was inhabited by 650 Macedonians.W. Krallert (1941), Volkstumskarte von Jugoslawien
Demographics As of the 2021 census, Lešok had 696 residents with the following ethnic composition:Total resident population of the Republic of North Macedonia by ethnic affiliation, by settlement, Census 2021 Macedonians 381 Albanians 280 Romani 2 Serbs 1 Others 11 Persons for whom data are taken from administrative sources 21
According to the 2002 census, the village had a total of 440 inhabitants. Ethnic groups in the village include:Macedonian Census (2002), Book 5 - Total population according to the Ethnic Affiliation, Mother Tongue and Religion, The State Statistical Office, Skopje, 2002, p. 185.
Macedonians 435 Serbs 1 Others 4
References