How theother half live

Teodor Shanin is a sociologist. He was born in Vilnius – “that much I know. But which country? That is harder. My father was born when Vilnius was in Russia, my mother when it was in Germany and I was born when it was in Poland. Now it is the capital of Lithuania.” He studied sociology in Jerusalem, then at Birmingham University, before starting on his life’s work: the Russian peasantry. He is a professor at the University of Manchester and rector of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. He was made an OBE in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee birthday honours list.…