The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, known as “Shaninka,” is one of Russia’s main universities for the study of the humanities.
The school was founded in 1995 by the British sociologist Teodor Shanin, who’s credited with pioneering the West’s study of Russian peasantry. He’s also the author of 14 books and an advocate of interdisciplinary research that fuses history, economic philosophy, and political science. In 1974, Shanin joined the faculty at the University of Manchester, where he’s a professor emeritus today. From 1995 until 2007, he served as the rector of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, before becoming its president.
