Jerzy Å»uÅ‚awski (Polish: [ˈjÉ›Ê É¨ Ê uˈwafski]; 14 July 1874 â€" 9
August 1915) was a Polish literary figure, philosopher, translator,
alpinist and nationalist whose best-known work is the science-fiction
epic, Trylogia Księżycowa (The Lunar Trilogy), written between 1901
and 1911.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 Å»uÅ‚awski created an impressive body of workâ€"seven
volumes of poetry, three collections of literary criticism, numerous
cultural and philosophical essays, ten plays and five novels. He was
considered an important and influential intellectual figure in the
early years of the 20th century, but a century later, the only
creation which has remained in print and assured him literary
immortality is The Lunar Trilogy. StanisÅ‚aw Lem (1921â€"2006),
renowned as the "most widely read science-fiction writer in the
world",[1] contributed an introduction to the 1956 and 1975 editions
of the Trilogy's initial volume, Na Srebrnym Globie (On the Silver
Globe), crediting Żuławski's words with inspiring him to become "a
writer of the fantastic" and describing the time he spent reading The
Lunar Trilogy as "one of the most fascinating and life-changing
experiences" of his youth.Jerzy Żuławski was born into a strongly
nationalistic Polish household in the village of Lipowiec, near
Rzeszów, a major city in the region of Galicia. In 1772, Galicia,
with its capital Lwów, was separated from Poland in the First
Partition and, for the next 146 years, became part of the Austrian
Habsburg Empire. 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. Kazimierz had a great influence on young Jerzy's
life and Jerzy shared many of the views his father expressed.Educated
at good schools in Limanowa, Bochnia and Kraków, Żuławski was in
Switzerland from 1892 to 1899, where he studied first at the
University of Zürich and then pursued his doctorate of philosophy at
the University of Bern under the guidance of the eminent positivist
Richard Avenarius (1843â€"1896), who died before the completion of
Żuławski's dissertation on Spinoza, Das Problem der Kausalität bei
Spinoza, which was published in Bern in 1899. Żuławski subsequently
revised and expanded his German-language text into a 1902 Polish
popular-philosophy book, Bededykt Spinoza, Człowiek i Dzieło
(Benedict Spinoza, Man and Achievement). 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.
August 1915) was a Polish literary figure, philosopher, translator,
alpinist and nationalist whose best-known work is the science-fiction
epic, Trylogia Księżycowa (The Lunar Trilogy), written between 1901
and 1911.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 Å»uÅ‚awski created an impressive body of workâ€"seven
volumes of poetry, three collections of literary criticism, numerous
cultural and philosophical essays, ten plays and five novels. He was
considered an important and influential intellectual figure in the
early years of the 20th century, but a century later, the only
creation which has remained in print and assured him literary
immortality is The Lunar Trilogy. StanisÅ‚aw Lem (1921â€"2006),
renowned as the "most widely read science-fiction writer in the
world",[1] contributed an introduction to the 1956 and 1975 editions
of the Trilogy's initial volume, Na Srebrnym Globie (On the Silver
Globe), crediting Żuławski's words with inspiring him to become "a
writer of the fantastic" and describing the time he spent reading The
Lunar Trilogy as "one of the most fascinating and life-changing
experiences" of his youth.Jerzy Żuławski was born into a strongly
nationalistic Polish household in the village of Lipowiec, near
Rzeszów, a major city in the region of Galicia. In 1772, Galicia,
with its capital Lwów, was separated from Poland in the First
Partition and, for the next 146 years, became part of the Austrian
Habsburg Empire. 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. Kazimierz had a great influence on young Jerzy's
life and Jerzy shared many of the views his father expressed.Educated
at good schools in Limanowa, Bochnia and Kraków, Żuławski was in
Switzerland from 1892 to 1899, where he studied first at the
University of Zürich and then pursued his doctorate of philosophy at
the University of Bern under the guidance of the eminent positivist
Richard Avenarius (1843â€"1896), who died before the completion of
Żuławski's dissertation on Spinoza, Das Problem der Kausalität bei
Spinoza, which was published in Bern in 1899. Żuławski subsequently
revised and expanded his German-language text into a 1902 Polish
popular-philosophy book, Bededykt Spinoza, Człowiek i Dzieło
(Benedict Spinoza, Man and Achievement). 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.
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