Context:

Arab-Israeli War (1948-1949), also known in Israel as the War of Independence, was the first war of five Arab nations against Israel. As a result, approximately half of the territories initially assigned to the Arab states and West Jerusalem happened to be under control of Israel. Other Arab States and East Jerusalem got conquered by Jordan and Egypt and remained under their administration until the year of 1967.


Social work in Israel during the 1950-s was limited, due to a weak and insufficiently developed post-war social welfare system. From 1948 to 1951 approximately 700,000 immigrants arrived in Israel. Among the duties of social assistance services were the provision of housing, workplaces, education and healthcare services to newly arrived people.

Context

The Birmingham University Centre for the Study of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (now the Centre for Russian and East European Studies) was established in 1963. Nowadays, its goal is to employ specialists in the study of Russia and post-Soviet countries, publish books and hold regular conferences on the given topic.

Robert Davies represents the Birmingham school of Sovietologists in Britain. He's been studying Soviet economy and industrial history.

Robert E. Smith — a historian, researcher of medieval agriculture and peasants in Russia. His most famous books include:

• The Origins of Farming in Russia (1959),
• Peasant Farming in Muscovy (1977)
• Bread and Salt: A Social and Economic History of Food and Drink in Russia (1984)

Alexander V. Chayanov (1888-1937) was a Russian economist, rural sociologist and science-fiction writer. His studies were mainly focused on the problems of peasant economics. He also saw a way to improve the efficiency of an agricultural sector by the establishment of agricultural cooperatives. He founded the Research Institute of Agricultural Economy and Policy (1919-1929) but was arrested in 1930 for a fabricated case of the «Labor Peasant Party», sent into exile and shot in 1937.

Chayanov's main works include:

• «Peasant Farm Organisation» (1925);
  
• «A Short Course on Cooperation» (1925);
  
• «The basic ideas and organizational forms of agricultural co-operation» (1927).

Isaac Deutscher — historian, journalist, author of Joseph Stalin's biography and a three-volume study of Leon Trotsky:

• Stalin: A Political Biography. New York, 1967
• The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879 - 1921 (1954)
• The Prophet Unarmed (1959)
• Trotsky: The Prophet Outcast (1963)

Paul M. Sweezy — an American neo-Marxist economist, theorist and strong proponent of Marxism, journalist, and one of the founders of the socialist magazine «Monthly Review».

His most famous books:

• «The theory of capitalist development» (1942);
  
• «Monopoly Capital: An essay on the American economic and social order» (1966) co-authored by Paul A. Baran.

Edward P. Thompson — a British social historian, writer, peace campaigner and Marxist. In 1963, one of Thompson's most famous books, «The Making of the English Working Class,» was published.

Charles W. Mills — American sociologist, publicist and public intellectual, one of the founders of the left-wing trend in Western sociology. He was a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until the end of his life (1962). It was Mills who first popularised the «New Left» term in the United States in a 1960 open letter published in the 5th issue of the «New Left Review».

Teodor highly appreciated his work and was even going to become his assistant in Cuba; however, Charles Mills suddenly passed away.

Main works:

• The power elite (1956)
• White Collar: The American Middle Classes (1951)
• The Sociological Imagination (1959)

The New Left — a combination of activist political movements and intellectual trends emerged in Western Europe and North America in the 1950-s and 1960s. It is frequently associated with radical student movements of the 1960s which culminated in famous mass protests of 1968. The term got widely disseminated thanks to Marxist historians E.P. Thompson and C.W. Wills who used it in the journal title («New Left Review»).

Student protests in Birmingham — riots which started on November 28, 1968, after the rejection of Birmingham University to meet students' requirements concerning the representation issues on the University Council, Senate and departmental committees. On November 28th, students occupied the Great Hall inside the Aston Webb building. These protests lasted for a week.

Stuart M. Hill — British Jamaican cultural sociologist, one of the «New Left Review» founders.

His most famous works:

• Deviancy, Politics and the Media (1971),
• Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse (1973),
• A 'Reading' of Marx's 1857 Introduction to the Grundrisse (1973),
• Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (1997)
• "Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies" (1992).

Ivan Illich — was a Roman Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic who held left views. In his numerous works he criticised various aspects of industrial society, saw a danger in usurpation of human values and knowledge by specialists and experts.

Longo Maï — a network of agricultural cooperatives with an anti-capitalist ideological focus. It was founded in 1973 in Limans, France, and got propagated all over Europe and Central America.

Context

In Russia, after Perestroika, the old education system was dismantled, and new values had replaced it, but there were not enough textbooks and teachers. The Foundation "Cultural Initiative" created an international team to publish textbooks of a new type; thus, a whole market of educational literature was formed and many scholars managed to find jobs. The project was also launched to train 100 principals to manage schools.

Intercenter is an independent research centre that was founded in 1993. For many years, it initiated and conducted major interdisciplinary researches, encouraged young scholars. It holds the Annual International Symposium "The Russian Ways" (formerly "Where is Heading to?")

Tatyana I. Zaslavskaya – a Soviet and Russian sociologist and economist. Academician of the RAS, VASKhNIL, Doctor of Economics, Professor. She was the founder of the Novosibirsk School of Sociology. The main directions of Zaslavskaya's academic activity were the economy of agriculture and the social development of the village, the transformation of the institutional system, and social stratification in transforming society. Together with Teodor Shanin, she was co-President of the Interdisciplinary Academic Centre of Social Sciences (Intercenter), co-organizer of the Symposium ``Where is Russia Heading to?" (now "The Russian Ways''), editor of scientific papers from the Symposium, a lecturer at the MSSES.

Viktor P. Danilov – Soviet and Russian agrarian historian, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor. He was a leading expert in the study of the rural community, collectivization, and, in general, the history of the peasantry of Russia in the XX century. He was a friend and associate of Teodor Shanin, together with whom he organized an interdisciplinary agrarian seminar, as well as the Centre for Peasant Studies of the MSSES. Danilov was the compiler and editor of the yearbook "Peasant Studies", led the historical part of the historical and sociological peasant studies projects of Teodor Shanin, and he was also the organizer of the history section at the Symposiums ``Where is Russia Heading to?" (now "The Russian Ways'').

Yuri A. Levada – a Soviet and Russian sociologist and political scientist; Doctor of Philosophy, Professor. The key areas of his research were in the field of theoretical and political sociology and the sociology of public opinion. Founder and director of the "Levada Center". One of the key organizers and participants of the Symposium "Where is Russia Heading to?"/ "The Russian Ways". Co-director, together with Teodor Shanin, of the methodological seminar on the interdisciplinary study of generations.

Vladimir A. Yadov – a Soviet and Russian sociologist; Doctor of Philosophy, Professor. His researches were focused on the theory and methodology of the social sciences, the sociology of labor, and economic sociology. 1988 to 2000, he was Director of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He held leading positions at the International Sociological Association, at the International Institute of Sociology, at the European Association of Experimental Psychology, and headed the Russian Society of Sociologists. He met Teodor Shanin in the 1960s during his internship in England. Yadov was an active participant at the Symposium ``Where is Russia Heading to?"/ The Russian Ways"; taught at the Faculty of Sociology at the MSSES.

Otto Latsis was a Soviet and Russian journalist, Doctor of Economics. He wrote about the political and economic life in the USSR during Perestroika, wrote in the "Communist", "Izvestia", "Novye Izvestia", "Moscow News". The Author of the book "The Indefatigable Builder". Participated in the conferences "The Russian Ways" and seminars of the Intercenter.

Контекст

MSSES (The Moscow School for the Social and Economic Sciences) is a Russian-British non-state university, founded in 1995 by Teodor Shanin. Many of the bachelor's and master's degrees programs are validated by the University of Manchester. He held the position of School Rector from 1995 to 2007. From 2007 through 2020 he held the post of President of the School.

MSSES is the main project of Teodor. He denied the need to simply borrow formats that are relevant to Western universities. The reform of Russian universities, in his opinion, should have been carried out considering the traditions of Russian education with the help and support of Russian scholars.

Yegor T. Gaidar – Russian liberal reformer, statesman and politician, economist, Doctor of Economics. One of the key leaders and ideologists of the economic reforms of the early 1990s in Russia. Co-author of books "Khozraschyot and development of economic independence of enterprises" (1984), "Economic reform: causes, directions, problems" (1989). Author of monographs "Economic Reforms and hierarchical structures" (1990), "State and Evolution" (1996), "Anomalies of Economic Growth" (1997), "Days of Defeat and Victory" (1998), "Long Time. Russia in the world: Essays on Economic History "(2005), "Power and Property: Distemper and Institutions. State and Evolution" (2009). In total, the economist has more than 100 publications in Russian and foreign publications.

Alexander M. Nikulin is a Director of the Chayanov Research Center, Ph.D. in Economics, Associate Professor, graduate of the Moscow School. His academic specialty: economic sociology, historical sociology, sociology of knowledge, agricultural sociology.

Scientific journal "Russian Peasant Studies'' – began in 1996 as a Yearbook of Teodor Shanin and Victor Danilov. Now, the scientific journal is published by the Center for Agrarian studies of the Russian Presidental Academy of National Economy and Public Administration four times per year.

In 2002, the Moscow School launched the Conference for young scholars "Vectors of Contemporary Russia Development".