In a twenty-year writing career, from his first book of poems in 1895, at the age of 21, to his final World War I dispatches in 1915, Jerzy Żuławski created an impressive body of work—seven volumes of poetry, three collections of literary criticism, numerous cultural and philosophical essays, ten plays and five novels.

Eleven years before Jerzy's birth, his father Kazimerz Żuławski, a country squire, had participated in the 1863 January Uprising against Czarist rule in the Russian portion of partitioned Poland.

He also wrote about, and provided the first Polish translations of some of the works of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann as well as the original Hebrew Old Testament and Talmud and the writings of a number of Eastern philosophers.

By the end of 1901, Żuławski had largely abandoned teaching and devoted himself entirely to traveling and writing, including the completion of the first volume of his magnum opus about a tragically ill-fated Moon expedition, On the Silver Globe, which has as its final words, "Pisałem w Krakowie, w zimie 1901–2" ("I wrote in Kraków in the winter of 1901–2").

Following common practice of the period, the novel was written in installments, each of which was published, upon completion, in the literary journal Głos Narodu (The Voice of the Nation) between December 1901 and April 1902 and subsequently appeared in re-edited form as a 1903 book in Lwów.

He became the co-editor of the local literary journal, Zakopane, and welcomed many notable writers and friends, such as Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Jan Kasprowicz and Leopold Staff, who paid regular visits.

In the first days of August 1914, as the three entities of partitioned Poland—Russia, Germany and Austro-Hungary were entering the First World War, Jerzy Żuławski made the only decision he felt reflected his principles and joined Piłsudski's Legions to fight for the cause of regaining Polish independence.

At the end of 1914 he was assigned to Naczelny Komitet Narodowy (Supreme [Polish] National Committee) in Vienna and, in April 1915, was moved to Piotrków where he served at the Legion Headquarters as a liaison to the First Brigade command.

Such fame accruing to a Polish artist caused the powers in charge of Poland's cultural affairs to re-evaluate their assessment of Żuławski, and the director was invited to return as the creator of a project of his own choosing.

An auteur, whom a number of critics have described as a self-destructive genius, he devoted over two years to the task of adapting the first two volumes to the screen (he judged The Old Earth which, except for the first chapter, takes place entirely on our own planet, to be outside the scope of this already-overlong undertaking).

Perceiving the Selenites' battle against the Szerns as a thinly veiled allegory of the Polish people's struggle with totalitarianism, Wilhelmi shut down the filming, which was 80% complete and ordered all materials destroyed.

Wilhelmi died a few months later, in a March 1978 plane crash, but a passage of another eight years was required, as glasnost and perestroika began to thaw the Cold War-dominated Eastern Europe, for Żuławski to be able to return again to Poland and edit the still-unfinished remnants into a 166-minute rough approximation of what the finished film might have been.

Żuławski's theatrical endeavors were viewed with suspicion by many critics who called them controversial and unconventional, but most were widely popular with audiences, especially when exhibited by such renowned masters of stagecraft as Tadeusz Pawlikowski and performed by top stars, such as Irena Solska.

Profoundly influenced by Spinoza, von Hartmann, Avenarius and others, filtered through Żuławski's own unique vision, the trilogy offers an essentially pessimistic dissection of human character, our creation of religious myths and our unattainable desire for utopian salvation.

Meant to be a dissection of contemporary society, this work had the potential of becoming another acclaimed epic, but fell victim to the times and circumstances in which it appeared, failing in its quest for the proper opportunity to find an audience.

Due to the volume of his contributions to magazines and newspapers, Żuławski built up a large number of lesser-known texts which, in addition to short stories and poems, include critical essays and discussions of philosophy.

Additionally, Żuławski was held in high regard as a multi-lingual literary translator, especially of poetry, rendering into Polish the poems of Nietzsche, Richepin and many selections from the original Hebrew texts of the Old Testament.