The Fictional and the Factual in Alexander J. Motyl’s Who Killed Andrei Warhol: The American Diary of a Soviet Journalist

Iryna Yakovenko

doi:10.18290/rh247211.10s

Published : 2024-06-06

Vol. 72 No. 11 Zeszyt specjalny (2024)

The Fictional and the Factual in Alexander J. Motyl’s Who Killed Andrei Warhol: The American Diary of a Soviet Journalist

Iryna Yakovenko

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9161-4013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh247211.10s

Abstract

The article addresses the 2007 novel Who Killed Andrei Warhol: The American Diary of a Soviet Journalist by Alexander J. Motyl, analyzing its literary representations of the factual and the counterfactual. In his comic narrative about the past, constructed in the form of a diary of a Soviet journalist, Motyl blurs the line between historical and fictionalized facts. As a result, fictional characters (journalist Ivanov, Soviet communists Kelebek and Kolibri, Katyusha) and historical persons (Andy Warhol, Julia Zawacka, Valerie Solanas, Gus Hall, Morris Childs) co-exist on equal footing. Motyl’s novel is also regarded as a critique of the USSR, communist ideology, and propaganda, and as a satire on postmodern thinking. The article discusses the genre features of Who Killed Andrei Warhol as a novel written in the form of a pseudo diary. The theoretical framework of the article is provided by the studies of the literary diary, and the works on representations of historical facts and counterfactuality in fiction.

Keywords:

American popular fiction, political satire, the factual, the fictional, literary diary, Alexander J. Motyl

Details

References

Statistics

Authors

Download files

pdf

Altmetric indicators

Cited by / Share

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References

Doležel, Lubomír. 2011. Possible Worlds of Fiction and History: The Postmodern Stage. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Ferguson, Niall, ed. 1999. Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals. London: Basic Books.

Hooks, Angela R. 2020. “Introduction: Diary as a Quasi-Literary Genre.” Diary as Literature: Through the Lens of Multiculturalism in America, edited by Angela R. Hooks, ix-xxi. Wilmington: Vernon Press.

Hutcheon, Linda. 1998. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge.

Krol, Tatiana. 2018. A Comparative Imagological Study of the Irish and Ukrainian Great Famines in Novels by Samchuk, Macken, Motyl and Mullen: Doctor of Philosophy Thesis. Dublin: Dublin City University.

Magocsi, Paul Robert. 2019. “Andy Warhol: His Art and Ethnic Roots: Panel Discussion at the Ukrainian Museum.” The Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center, February 15, 2019. https://c-rrc.org/andy-warhol-his-art-and-ethnic-roots. Accessed August 9, 2023.

Motyl, Alexander J. 2011–2014. “Was Andy Warhol Ukrainian?” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 32/33 (Part 2/2): 549–55.

Motyl, Alexander. 2007. Who Killed Andrei Warhol: The American Diary of a Soviet Journalist by Oleksandr Ivanov: A Novel. Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press.

“New Novel about ‘Andrei’ Warhol by Alexander Motyl.” Brama, June 21, 2007. http://www. brama.com/news/press/2007/06/070621motyl_warhol.html. Accessed January 9, 2023.

Orlowsky, Dzvinia. 2008. “Interview with Alexander J. Motyl.” Červená Barva Press, December 10, 2008. http://www.cervenabarvapress.com/AlexanderMotylinterview.htm. Accessed August 9, 2023.

Ostapchuk, Tetyana. 2014. “Khudozhniy obraz pokolinnya DP kriz’ pryzmu postkolonial’noho pereprochytannya.” Postkolonializm. Generatsii. Kul’tura, edited by Tamara Hundorova and Agnieszka Matusiak, 243–57. Kyiv: Laurus.

Ostapchuk, Tetyana. 2017. “The Images of Vehicles in American Novels about Ukrainian Emigrants.” Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis. Slavica Wratislaviensia 164:43–53.

Pavel, Thomas. 1986. Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Ostapchuk, Tetyana. 2018. “A Reading of Alexander Motyl’s Fall River through the Lenses of Bordermemories.” Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal 5:83–95. http://kmhj.ukma.edu.ua/ article/view/150389. Accessed August 9, 2023.

Prendergast, Christopher. 2019. Counterfactuals: Paths of the Might Have Been. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Rak, Julie. 2020. “The Diary among Other Forms of Life Writing.” The Diary: The Epic of Everyday Life, edited by Batsheva Ben-Amos and Dan Ben-Amos, 58–72. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Ronen, Ruth. 1994. Possible Worlds in Fictional Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rusinko, Elaine. “Andy Warhol’s Ancestry: Facts, Myths, and Mysteries.” Academia, January 7, 2019. https://www.academia.edu/38098098/Andy_Warhols_Ancestry_Facts_Myths_and_Mysteries. Accessed August 9, 2023.

Schaeffer, Jean-Marie. 2013. “Fictional vs. Factual Narration.” The Living Handbook of Narratology, revised September 20, 2013. Accessed November 5, 2023. http://lhn.sub.uni-hamburg.de/index.php/Fictional_vs.html.

Sládek, Ondřej. 2010. “Between History and Fiction: On the Possibilities of an Alternative History.” Fictionality – Possibility – Reality, edited by Petr Koťátko, Martin Pokorný, and Marcelo Sabatés. Bratislava, Aleph. Accessed August 9, 2023. http://old.flu.cas.cz/ fictionality2/sladek.pdf.

Tata, Michael Angelo. 2006. “Warholian Machinehood I.” Nebula 3 (1): 94–109. http://www. nobleworld.biz/images/Nebula_3.1.pdf. Accessed November 5, 2023.

Tlustý, Jan. 2017. “Narratives Between History and Fiction.” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis 95:549–60.

Warhol, Andy. 1989. The Andy Warhol’s Diaries. Edited by Pat Hackett. New York: Warner Books.