On the centenary of Alfred Russel Wallace's death this week, it is worth recalling the remarkable influence that the naturalist's ideas had in Russia during his lifetime. His major works were translated into Russian, including his books The Malay Archipelago (1869), Darwinism (1889) and Man's Place in the Universe (1903).

Although Wallace was most famous as Charles Darwin's co-discoverer of evolution by natural selection, the demand among Russian intellectuals was mainly for Wallace's own publications. Many warmed to Wallace's contention that human spiritual faculties cannot be explained by natural selection.

Theologians such as Alexander Gusev (1842–1904) used it to defend Orthodox Christianity against 'non-believers'. Gusev even accused the translators of Wallace's Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection (1870) of censoring 'unscientific' ideas and of distorting Wallace's holistic view of science and religion (G. S. Levit and S. V. Polatayko Theor. Biosci. http://doi.org/pq8).

Russia's fascination with Wallace's work helped to shape the debate among early evolutionists on alternative versions of Darwinism (see D. Todes Nature 462, 36–37; 2009) and opened up discussion on the uniqueness of the human soul.