On November 30, 2023, at 5 p.m., the National Ethnographic Museum will host a demonstration of the capabilities of a new type of interactive digital map of Bulgaria. It presents a comprehensive overview of the country's movable and intangible cultural heritage by region.
The digital map displays artifacts collected over decades from the museum collections of the National Ethnographic Museum. In addition, it contains original sketches and drawings, audio, video, photo documents, and text information stored in the Ethnographic Archive and the National Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
The digital ethnographic map of Bulgaria was created as part of the project "Preservation, Presentation, and Socialization of Bulgarian Ethnographic and Folklore Cultural Heritage," implemented within the framework of Project BG05M2OP001-1.001 "Establishment and Development of a Center for Excellence "Heritage BG" (OP NOPIR), and with the kind assistance of the State Agency "Archives", which provided copies of original maps by the great Bulgarian ethnographer Hristo Vakarevski, who pioneered ethnographic mapping in Bulgarian science.
The digital ethnographic map of Bulgaria is the third independently implemented project by IEEM-BAS, combining humanities knowledge with information and communication technologies. In 2021, the ethnocoreological information system "Digital Dance Atlas" was completed as part of an interdisciplinary dissertation, and in 2022, the "NARODOUKA" archival information system was completed. The ambitions of the team that implemented the projects are to develop this new scientific ecosystem at IEEM-BAS and to give new "digital life" to the enormous wealth of cultural values.
