스뜨루가쯔끼 형제의 ‘경고소설’로서의 과학환상소설 ｢미운 백조｣ 연구

A Study on The Ugly Swans of Strugatsky Brothers as the Warning Novel

The Ugly Swans is the early SF work of Strugatsky Brothers. They recommended to read this work as the warning novel. Because they thought that they expressed not the hope of idealized future world, but the concern over the dangerous future in this work. Because of the negative nuance of this work, the censorship did not allow the publication of The Ugly Swans. At the beginning of this article, we studied the short history of the spread process of this work and we confirmed the status of Strugatsky Brothers in Soviet Union and the meaning of The Ugly Swans in their works. The title of The Ugly Swans has contradictory and metaphorical meanings. So we seized the warning elements, that are exposed obviously at first: continuous rain, strange people who are called ‘mokrets’ (slimy), overmature and very clever children (infant prodigy) and greedy adults. These elements are symptoms of imminent destruction of the world (apocalypse). But usually in the warning novels, people can avoid the unfortunate future by the deep self-reflection. In the last part of this article accomplished the understanding of these self-reflection messages: necessity of responsibility, wisdom, self-sacrifice.