Ivan Vasil'evich Kireevskii, Russian literary critic and religious philosopher, was born in Moscow in a family of the old nobility related to the important poet Vasilii Zhukovskii (1783–1852). Kireevskii's father died in 1812 after contracting typhus in a hospital he founded for wounded soldiers. After his father's death, the young boy's education was largely guided by Zhukovskii, who did much for the development of Kireevskii's literary talent. Zhukovskii repeatedly affirmed, with total sincerity, that his young relative could become a fine writer. In 1823 Kireevskii became a member of the Obshchestvo liubomudrov (Society of the lovers of wisdom), organized by Dmitrii Venevitinov and Prince Vladimir Odoevskii for the study of German philosophy, especially Schelling. To complete his education, Kireevskii went abroad in 1830. In Germany he attended the lectures of Hegel, Schelling, and Schleiermacher. When he returned to Russia, he began to...