Intangible Cultural Heritage and New Technologies: Challenges and Opportunities for Cultural Preservation and Development

The Bulgarian national Inventory of ICH encompasses the basic domains of ICH according to Convention 2003, in agreement with the specificities of the Bulgarian ICH. The Inventory is based on elements of ICH and contains lists organized on two levels: national and regional. The elements enlisted in the Bulgarian National Inventory of ICH are arranged in “rows” at typological level. The choice of constructing the Inventory on elements or bearers involves the issue of man’s participation. With the approach based on bearers, the man is personified: only this person(s) as a performer(s) of only this element(s). With the approach based on elements, the man is more or less depersonalized – the element is centered in the meaning of the performance skill occurring or not in execution by and from various eligible people. The naming of elements in the Inventory signifies cultural practices as parts of the totality – ICH of the respective state. According to this perspective the Inventory is a framework – it arranges the perception of ICH (of community, region, and state). The knowledge provided is framed knowledge which indicates but does not participate in the occurring of the element. The function of element indication of the Inventory actually leads to a situation in which the constructed framework determines the perception of the cultural heritage of a given community in the sphere of intangibility. This function corresponds well with the so called today’s heritage construction policy(s). In the sphere of ICH at present, the Inventory, as a basic instrument of the state, is also a basic instrument participating intensely in the construction of alternative type of memory in terms of ICH.