Rural community development is one of the central rural sociological concepts. The idea itself deserves double attention: from the point of its theoretical foundation and from the perspective of the need to be operationalized because of research and rural development planning. In this paper, the idea of rural development is being approached from the aspect of social vitality as a new/old concept. The concept of social vitality is being defined and operationalized in order to indicate the possibilities of this concept as an analytical tool for researching rural development. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. III 46006: Održiva poljoprivreda i ruralni razvoj u funkciji ostvarivanja strateških ciljeva Republike Srbije u okviru Dunavskog regiona“(Ministarstvo prosvete, nauke i tehnološkog razvoja]