Teodor Shanin

Teodor Shanin
Teodor Shanin
Born 30 October 1930
Vilnius
Nationality British
Occupation Sociologist
Known for The Awkward Class

Teodor Shanin OBE (born 30 October, 1930) is a British sociologist who was for many years Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester. He is credited with pioneering the study of Russian peasantry in the West, and is best known for his first book, The Awkward Class, Political Sociology of Peasantry in a Developing Society, Russia, 1910-25 (Clarendon Press, 1972).[1] After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Shanin moved to Russia where, with funding from The Open Society Institute, Ford Foundation and others, he founded the Moscow School for the Social and Economic Sciences in 1995.[2] Shanin is President of the Moscow School, Professor Emeritus of the University of Manchester, and an Honorary Fellow of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.[3]

His main research interests are Marxism, peasant studies, historical sociology, sociology of knowledge, informal economies, epistemology and higher education.[4]

In 2002 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for service to education in Russia.[5]

Biography

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 early 1948 he left for Palestine to take part in the Israeli War of Independence (Palmach: Harel brigade). In 1952 he graduated from the Jerusalem University College of Social Work, followed by professional career in social work. He graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1962 and completed his PhD in sociology in 1970 at the University of Birmingham (where his dissertation was titled “Cyclical mobility and Political Consciousness of Russian Peasants 1910-1925”). He became a lecturer at Sheffield University, and in 1974 he was appointed Professor of Sociology at Manchester University. Honorary Fellow of The Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Rector of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. Fellow at St’Antony’s college, Oxford, Visiting Professor at Ann Arbour Colombia University(US).

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” of which the last reprinted numerous times and in many languages, becoming for a time a basic textbook delimiting the topic. One of the initial team of editors of Journal of Peasant Studies. His other works and teaching addressed historical sociology, social economics, epistemology, interdisciplinary studies, political sciences and rural history. He paid particular attention to conceptualization and analysis of the so-called “developing societies”. Fieldwork in Iran, Mexico, Tanzania and Russia. Shanin’s methods stressed particularly interdisciplinary issues, and points of meeting of sociology with history, economics philosophy and political sciences. He describes himself professionally as a historical sociologist.

Much of Professor Shanin’s was given to Russia and bringing to life methodological traditions of Russia’s rural studies of early 20th century. It was also Russia where his research overspilled into active involvement in organization within the educational sphere. 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 creation in 1995 of a Russian-English post-graduate university: the Moscow School for the Social and Economic Sciences who’s first rector he became. He is now President of that graduate university. He was also instrumental in setting up of the InterCentre - а multi-disciplinary research unit of MSSES. Central for his vision and analytical work were efforts to overcome the over-simplifications of the theories of “progress”. His works reflect impacts of scholars whom Shanin considers his teachers: Mark Bloch, Alexander Chayanov, Charles Wright Mills and Paul Baran. In his later research, he put forward the concept of expolary economies – types of informal economy which challenge neoclassical economics as well as related to it state policies.[4]

Selected publications

Books in English

  • Alavi, Hamza & Shanin, Teodor (2003) Introduction to the Sociology of "Developing Societies", Monthly Review Press
  • "Defining Peasants: Essays Concerning Rural Societies: Expolary economies and Learning from Them” Blackwell Publishing, 1990;
  • “Revolution as a Moment of Truth: 1905-1907→1917-1922” Yale University Press, 1986;
  • “Russia as a Developing Society: Roots of Otherness, Russia's Turn of Century” Macmillan, 1985;
  • Late Marx and the Russian Road: Marx and the Peripheries of Capitalism", Routledge, GB. Monthly Review US, 1983;
  • “The Rules of the Game: Models in Contemporary Scholarly Thought” (ed.) Tavistoc Publications, 1972;
  • Shanin, Teodor. (1972). The Awkward Class: Political Sociology of Peasantry in a Developing Society, Russia 1910-1925. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
  • ‘Peasants and Peasant Societies’ (ed.) Penguin Books, 1971;

Books in Russian

  • Отцы и дети. Поколенческий анализ современной России, Левада Ю., Шанин Т., НЛО 2003 [Generational Analysis of Contemporary Russia]
  • Крестьянское восстание в Тамбовской губернии в 1919-1921гг. Антоновщина, (ed. together with V.Danilov) Тамбов, 1994 [The Peasant War in Tambov Region in 1919-1921. Antonovschina]
  • Неформальная Экономика: Россия и Мир, (ed.) Логос, 1999 [Informal economies: Russia and the World];
  • Рефлексивное крестьяноведение и десятилетие исследований сельской России, (ed. together with A.Nikulin and V.Danilov) РОССПЭН, 2002 [Reflexive Peasantology];

References

  1. ↑ "An exchange of peasantries". Times Higher Education (THE). 1998-03-20. Retrieved 2018-05-30.
  2. ↑ "History". www.msses.ru. Retrieved 2018-05-30.
  3. ↑ "Teodor Shanin". www.msses.ru. Retrieved 2018-05-30.
  4. 1 2 "Teodor Shanin". www.msses.ru. Retrieved 2018-03-26.
  5. ↑ Gold, Karen (2002-09-10). "Peasants' professor". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-05-30.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.