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Professor Teodor Shanin, OBE Professor Emeritus of the University of Manchester President of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences Honorary Fellow of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Professor Teodor Shanin, OBE, president of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, who’s long commitment to studies of peasant societies, historical sociology and epistemology as well as active involvement in building up of effective academic structures led to a prolific academic career and earned him numerous accolades.

Main research interests: peasant studies, historical sociology, sociology of knowledge, informal economies, and epistemology as well as higher education as such.

Teodor Shanin was born in Wilno\Vilnius in 1930. He was exiled to Siberia in 1941 and after being freed on amnesty lived in Samarkand, Lodze, and Paris. In 1948 left for Palestine to take part in Israeli War of Independence (Palmah: Harel brigade). In 1951-1952 - Jerusalem University College of Social Work followed by professional career in social work (criminalized youth, TB hospital, rehabilitation center for physically and mentally handicapped etc.). In 1959 returned to part-time studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from which graduated in 1962 (sociology and economics). Received his PhD in 1970 at the University of Birmingham (“Cyclical mobility and Political Consciousness of Russian Peasants 1910-1925”). Lecturer at Sheffield University, fellow of St’Antony’s college and as of 1974 Professor of Sociology at Manchester University. Elected honorary Fellow of The Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1991). Professor Shanin has been one of originators of contemporary peasant studies. He made his name by his books “The Awkward Class” and “Peasants and Peasant Societies” which was reprinted many times and in many languages becoming for a time a basic textbook delimiting the topic. One of initial team of editors of Journal of Peasant Studies. His other works and teaching addressed historical sociology, social economics, epistemology, politology and rural history. In the rural fields of his interest undertook fieldwork in Iran, Mexico, Tanzania and Russia. Particular to Shanin’s method was the stress laid on interdisciplinary issues, on points of meeting of sociology with history, philosophy, economics and political sciences.

In his work Professor Shanin paid particular attention to Russia bringing with to life methodological traditions of Russia’s rural studies of early 20th century. It was also there that his research overspilled into active involvement in efforts to transform Russia’s social sciences. This began in the early days of “perestroika” when together with academician Tatyana Zaslavskaya he set up schools for up-training of young soviet sociologists. The high point of those efforts became the creation in 1995 of a post-graduate Russian-English university: The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences who’s first rector he became. He was also instrumental in setting up of the InterCentre - а multi-disciplinary research unit. Typical for his vision and analytical work were efforts to overcome the over-simplifications of theory of “progress” and the rush to quick-fix solutions in agriculture of the so-called “developing societies”. His works reflects impacts of scholars whom Shanin considers his teachers: Mark Bloch, Charles Wright Mills, Paul Sweezy, Paul Baran and Alexander Chayanov. In his later research he puts forward the concept of expolary economies – types of informal economy which challenge neoclassical economics and related forms of social and political planning.

PUBLICATIONS

Books: ‘Peasants and Peasant Societies’ Penguin Books, 1971, in Russian: Великий незнакомец: крестьяне и фермеры в современном мире: Пер. с англ./Сост. Т. Шанин; Под ред. А. В. Гордона.- М.: «Прогресс», 1992; "The Awkward class: Political Sociology of Peasantry in a Developing Society: Russia 1910-1925" Claredron Press, 1972, “The Rules of the Game: Models in Contemporary Scholarly Thought” Tavistoc Publications, 1972; Late Marx and the Russian Road: Marx and the Peripheries of Capitalism". Routledge, GB. Monthly Review US, 1983; “Russia as a Developing Society: Roots of Otherness, Russia's Turn of Century” Macmillan, 1985; "Defining Peasants: Essays Concerning Rural Societies” Blackwell Publishing, 1990; ‘Expolary Economics" Blackwell Publishing, 1990;

“Revolution as a Moment of Truth” Yale University Press, 1986; In Russian: “Революция как момент истины” “Весь мир”, 1997 г; “Неформальная Экономика: Россия и Мир” Логос, 1999; “Рефлексивное крестьяноведение” МВШСЭН, РОССПЭН, 2002 “Отцы и дети. Поколенческий анализ современной России” Сост. Левада Ю., Шанин Т., НЛО 2003