Mis oleks olnud kui...? Alternatiivajaloolised fiktsioonid eesti kirjanduses

The article discusses the poetics of alternate history fiction as one of the genres of speculative fiction, doing it mainly from the fictional world vs. narrative aspect. The analysis is concerned with the relations between history and fiction, the differences between a realist historical novel and a postmodernist novel of alternate history, as well as the main characteristics of alternate histories. From this theoretical vantage point the author scrutinizes some relevant texts of Estonian literature, in particular the alternate histories by Karl Ristikivi, Jaan Kross, Helga Nõu and Indrek Hargla. In most cases those authors have used ”what if” speculations to create their divergent histories, but some of their fictional narratives have been constructed by using a more liberal and playful combination of recorded and imaginative elements.