The concept of ‘rural idyll’ and the attempts to live traditionally in a contemporary rural area

Abstract

This article draws on an ethnographic experience gathered in 2019 in Zajezova ecovillage in Central Slovakia. Inspired by the images of a rural idyll, its inhabitants chose to migrate from an urban area to a rural one. Their initial wish is to live traditionally in an authentic rural area where they expect life to be flowing at a slower pace, in harmony with nature, based on cooperation rather than competition. Is such an ideal vision possible to come true, and why does the concept of rural idyll intertwine with the concept of tradition?

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