  We initiate the study of holomorphically convex groups: groups that can be
realized as fundamental groups of smooth complex projective varieties with
holomorphically convex universal covers. If $G$ is a holomorphically convex
group of cohomological dimension two, we show that $G$ is isomorphic to the
fundamental group of a compact Riemann surface. As a consequence, we show that
if a linear group $G$ has (rational) cohomological dimension two and is the
fundamental group of a smooth complex projective variety, then $G$ is a
(virtual) surface group.
