Sheyn Pavel Vasilyevich (1826, Mogilev – 1900, Riga), Russian ethnographer, folklorist, linguist. Born into the family of a Jewish merchant. From the age of 13 he was partially paralysed and walked on crutches for the rest of his life. For this reason he could not attend a yeshiva and was taught by a private tutor, who instilled in him an interest in Jewish literature. In 1843–46 he was treated at a Moscow hospital, where, with the help of the staff, he learned Russian and German. After the hospital he did not want to return to the Pale of Settlement and in 1848 converted to Christianity (Lutheranism), after which a complete break with his family followed. In 1851 Sheyn graduated from a German school attached to the Lutheran Church of St Michael, writing poems in Yiddish in imitation of German poets. The abilities of this pupil, who was drawn to translation and writing, were noticed by the poet F. Miller, who taught at the school. He later became a friend of Sheyn's, and his son V. Miller became the folklorist's first biographer.

Sheyn worked as a tutor on landed estates (1851–60), and as a teacher at state schools in Tula, Kaluga, and Vitebsk (1861–81); in the summer of 1861, at L. Tolstoy's invitation, he taught Russian at the Yasnaya Polyana school. During his years as a private tutor he suffered from loneliness, missing the family that had rejected him, and wrote to F. Miller that his conversion to Christianity, like much else in his life, had been a mistake.

In 1856–59, influenced by Russian public figures and scholars grouped around F. Glinka, Sheyn became interested in collecting folklore and grew close to the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature at Moscow University. Sheyn moved in the circle of A. S. Khomyakov, K. Aksakov, and other Slavophiles. In 1859, with the assistance of Aksakov and Khomyakov, his first work, “Russian Folk Epics and Songs,” was published in the “Readings” of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities. The publication earned the approval of the famous collector of Russian folklore A. N. Afanasyev. Sheyn subsequently expanded this collection, also recording samples of Russian dialects and Belarusian folklore.

From 1871 he worked at the Russian Geographical Society, and that same year his manuscript “Belarusian Folk Songs” (1874) was awarded the society's small gold medal. From 1876 to 1900, in the pages of the “Ethnographic Review,” published by V. Miller, Sheyn printed his notes and articles. In 1881 he retired and settled in St Petersburg. At the request of Ya. Grot, from 1886 he took part in compiling the academic dictionary of the Russian literary language. The inclusion of folk phraseology in the dictionary is credited to Sheyn.

Sheyn's principal works: “Russian Folk Songs” (1870), “Materials for the Study of the Life and Language of the Russian Population of the North-Western Region” (vols. 1–3, 1887–1902; Sheyn was considered in his time the foremost authority on the life and dialects of north-western Russia), and “The Great Russian in His Songs, Rites, Customs, Beliefs, Tales, Legends, etc.” (vol. 1, parts 1–2, 1898–1900). For all the diversity of their material, Sheyn's collections are notable for their clear structure and systematisation; they were drawn on by N. A. Nekrasov, A. N. Ostrovsky, M. P. Mussorgsky, and others.