The Bucolic in the Age of Pandemic. Updating the “Village Myth” on the Example of Instagram Accounts Dedicated to Life in the Village

Abstract

The covid epidemic, already coined the “pandemic era”, has changed many of our ideas about the world, pushed us to reassess the notions of mobility and space, as well as the ratio of attractive and repulsive aspects of urban and rural life. Perhaps for the first time in many years of the Russian history, a significant part of the population began to perceive the village as a place more suitable for life than the city. The resulting massive relocation of citizens to the countryside gave rise to new ideas about the advantages of rural life, which were reflected in social networks. The article gives both qualitative and quantitative analysis of three Instagram* accounts dedicated to village life. The study of the accounts' content with the system of images reproduced there, as well as statistical data related to the traffic dynamics and the rise in subscribers, suggests that the pandemic has revived and mainstreamed a mix of ideas dubbed in the article “the village myth”.