„КУФАРЪТ НА ИМИГРАНТА“: „МУЗЕЯТ БЕЗ СТЕНИ“, ПРЕДСТАВЯЩ БЪЛГАРИТЕ В СЕВЕРНА АМЕРИКА
THE VIRTUAL MUSEUM OF THE BULGARIANS IN NORTH AMERICA: SHARED HERITAGE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS

Summary/Abstract: This paper introduces the website called “The Immigrant’s Suitcase: Virtual Museum of the Bulgarians in North America” (www.immigrant.bg) recently launched by the American Research Center in Bulgaria, Inc., and the American Research Center in Sofia Foundation. The online museum is intended to serve as a place for collective memory and shared heritage for the Bulgarian community in North America by way of online access to oral histories, collections of visual-anthropological and art materials, interactive exhibits, and an academic library. This very first virtual museum of Bulgarian immigration is a response to the new social necessity for advanced intercultural connections in contemporary global society, where individuals and groups relocate more intensively, and where “migration” more often becomes “mobility.” The dynamic global situation requires intellectual and institutional mediators between cultures–mediators such as the “The Immigrant’s Suitcase.” The website presents materials about everyday life in both the past and the present and thereby serves as a guiding light for the future, not only for the Bulgarians living abroad, but also for the other migrant communities who live apart from their motherland. Biographical Statement: Dilyana Ivanova is a Research Associate at The Field Museum in Chicago and the Chief Administrator of the American Research Center in Bulgaria, Inc., and the American Research Center in Sofia Foundation. She earned her Ph.D. in Ethnology in 2012 at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Ivanova works in the fields of historical anthropology and museology. She is the author and the research manager of the website “The Immigrant’s Suitcase: Virtual Museum of the Bulgarians in North America.”

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