diff --git a/Documentation/Makefile.sphinx b/Documentation/Makefile.sphinx
index 8a662be9bd87..addf32309bc3 100644
--- a/Documentation/Makefile.sphinx
+++ b/Documentation/Makefile.sphinx
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ PAPEROPT_a4     = -D latex_paper_size=a4
 PAPEROPT_letter = -D latex_paper_size=letter
 KERNELDOC       = $(srctree)/scripts/kernel-doc
 KERNELDOC_CONF  = -D kerneldoc_srctree=$(srctree) -D kerneldoc_bin=$(KERNELDOC)
-ALLSPHINXOPTS   = -d $(BUILDDIR)/.doctrees $(KERNELDOC_CONF) $(PAPEROPT_$(PAPER)) -c $(srctree)/$(src) $(SPHINXOPTS) $(srctree)/$(src)
+ALLSPHINXOPTS   = -D version=$(KERNELVERSION) -D release=$(KERNELRELEASE) -d $(BUILDDIR)/.doctrees $(KERNELDOC_CONF) $(PAPEROPT_$(PAPER)) -c $(srctree)/$(src) $(SPHINXOPTS) $(srctree)/$(src)
 # the i18n builder cannot share the environment and doctrees with the others
 I18NSPHINXOPTS  = $(PAPEROPT_$(PAPER)) $(SPHINXOPTS) .
 
diff --git a/Documentation/conf.py b/Documentation/conf.py
index 8b72577f38f5..6cc41a0555a3 100644
--- a/Documentation/conf.py
+++ b/Documentation/conf.py
@@ -60,10 +60,31 @@ author = 'The kernel development community'
 # |version| and |release|, also used in various other places throughout the
 # built documents.
 #
-# The short X.Y version.
-version = '4.5'
-# The full version, including alpha/beta/rc tags.
-release = '4.5'
+# In a normal build, version and release are are set to KERNELVERSION and
+# KERNELRELEASE, respectively, from the Makefile via Sphinx command line
+# arguments.
+#
+# The following code tries to extract the information by reading the Makefile,
+# when Sphinx is run directly (e.g. by Read the Docs).
+try:
+    makefile_version = None
+    makefile_patchlevel = None
+    for line in open('../Makefile'):
+        key, val = [x.strip() for x in line.split('=', 2)]
+        if key == 'VERSION':
+            makefile_version = val
+        elif key == 'PATCHLEVEL':
+            makefile_patchlevel = val
+        if makefile_version and makefile_patchlevel:
+            break
+except:
+    pass
+finally:
+    if makefile_version and makefile_patchlevel:
+        version = release = makefile_version + '.' + makefile_patchlevel
+    else:
+        sys.stderr.write('Warning: Could not extract kernel version\n')
+        version = release = "unknown version"
 
 # The language for content autogenerated by Sphinx. Refer to documentation
 # for a list of supported languages.