The book transforms and fixes the living vibrations of the events of the Shishmanov Days 2012, organized by the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with the Ethnographic Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and thus becomes an echo and memory of their vitality, structural organization and diverse contents. The main part presents the texts from the conference "The Imaginary Bulgarian", held in November 2012, and brought together specialists from different fields (ethnologists, folklorists, historians, philologists, ethnomusicologists, etc.) and countries (Bulgaria, Ukraine, Poland, Romania), turning to the legacy of Prof. Ivan D. Shishmanov and in search of that invisible image of the Bulgarian. The collection also reflects the events that were part of the Shishmanov Days 2012.