About Teodor Shanin (1930–2020)
Teodor Shanin, a distinguished scholar and educator, was born in Vilnius in 1930. His life was marked by tragedy and spectacle. Following the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, he and his mother were deported to Siberia. Others in his family perished in the Vilnius ghetto. After the war, he emigrated to Israel, where he served in Palmach in the War for Independence. He graduated in social work at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham, in the UK, and became a Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester. Shanin revolutionized the study of peasant sociology, of informal economy, of agrarian history, establishing academic schools and leaving a lasting impact on his pupils and followers. In the 1990s, Shanin founded the Moscow Higher School of Social and Economic Sciences, which offered graduate and undergraduate courses, and which awarded degrees validated by the University of Manchester and others. Known in affectionate tribute as “Shaninka”, the Moscow School quickly became one of the leading independent universities in Russia and Eastern Europe — until the onset of the current conflict.