SKB: Tiny suggestion, Alexey. Gravis fuit vita,
laevis sit ei terra" might be more poetically translated as
Hard his
Life; May the Soil (aliter: Earth) lie on him
Softly.
In Russian we say when burying the dead: Пусть земля будет ему
пухом (May earth be light as fluff to him). Otherwise, I'm not concerned with
the Earth/Soil dilemma, only with the phenomenon of Terra as Demonia's twin
planet/otherworld. I believe that in this respect Petrashevski's
epitaph matters, just as Zola's novel La Terre* does. But you, Stan
(glad to see you contradicting me again), don't get my point anyway.
As to Solzhenitsyn, VN didn't consider him a great writer (or even a
bright person) but acknowledged his heroism (see Selected Letters, p.
496 et passim). I'm not an expert on the subject and hope that someone with
better English and deeper knowledge will answer you
question.
*In his preface
to Maupassant's stories Tolstoy says: I don't believe what I am told in novels
like La Terre. On Antiterra the very existence of Terra is
questioned by sober minds. Btw., Tolstoy is the author of Франсуаза, the Russian
version of Maupassant's Le Port, the story about a brother-and-sister
incest. The phrase она твоя сестра ("she's
your sister", meaning that the prostitute with whom Celestine's friend has spent
the night is his, this other sailor's, sister) is Tolstoy's addition to
Maupassant's text (see Chekhov's letters to Suvorin).
best,
Alexey