Pavel Shejn

{{Short description|Russian and Belarusian ethnographer}}

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Pavel Vasilievich Shejn ({{langx|ru|Павел Васильевич Шейн}}, {{langx|be|Павел Васілевіч Шэйн}}; 1826, Mogilev – 1900, Riga) was a major Russian and Belarusian ethnographer and folklorist of Jewish origin. A prolific collector of folklore himself, Shejn was equally notable for organizing and encouraging a vast network of amateur folklorists.

Pavel Shejn was born a son of a Jewish merchant in Mogilev. Due to poor health he was often unable to attend school and studied on his own. As a teenager, he studied in a Lutheran school in Moscow, and himself converted to Lutheranism. Later in life he was for a some time a teacher at the school organized by Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. Despite the lack of formal training in philology, Shejn was an influential scholar, and his three-volume publication of Belarusian folklore remains one of the most important collections in the field.Шэйн Павел Васілевіч // Беларуская Энцыклапедыя, Т. 18, кн. 1. Мінск, 2004. Сс.25–26.