Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov, philosopher, critic and poet, was born at Moscow in 1853, the son of a well-known historian and rector of the city's university. He himself studied there and in 1874 gained his doctorate with a thesis on The Crisis of Western Civilization, on the strength of which he was awarded a fellowship in the faculty of philosophy. He subsequently travelled abroad, visiting England, France, Italy and Egypt. On his return to Russia he was given a post in the Ministry of Public Education at St Petersburg, where he also lectured at the university. His lectures on ‘Godmanhood’, delivered at this time, drew a large audience that included both Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. But a speech of his (March 1881) on capital punishment— shortly after the assassination of the Tsar Alexander II—aroused so much excitement that he resigned his position, though no pressure was brought upon him to do so. From then on he devoted himself entirely to literary work and to the task—at the time a good deal misunderstood—of promoting relations between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. He died, very prematurely, in 1900. Of his numerous publications The Philosophical Foundations of Integral Knowledge (1877), the Lectures on Godmanhood (1878) and A Criticism of Abstract Principles (1880) are the most important. His Russia and the Universal Church, published in Paris in 1889, was bitterly attacked by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. Several of his works have appeared in English translation.