The story "Heart of a Dog": the history of creation and fate. History of creation and literary fate of the work

Michael Bulgakov

dog's heart

Woo-oo-oo-oo-oo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Oh look at me, I'm dying! A blizzard in the gateway roars my departure, and I howl with it. I'm lost, I'm lost! A scoundrel in a dirty cap, a cook in the dining room for normal meals for employees of the Central Council of the National Economy, splashed boiling water and scalded my left side. What a reptile, and also a proletarian! Oh my God, how it hurts! Boiling water ate to the bone. Now I'm howling, howling, howling, but can you help with howling?

What did I do to him? How? Will I really devour the Council of the National Economy if I rummage through the rubbish heap? Greedy creature. Do you ever look at his face: after all, he is wider across himself! A thief with a copper muzzle. Ah, people, people! At noon, the cap treated me with boiling water, and now it was dark, about four o'clock at about noon, judging by the smell of onions from the Prechistenskaya fire brigade. Firefighters eat porridge for dinner, as you know. But this is the last thing, like mushrooms. Dogs I knew from Prechistenka, however, told me that in the Neglinny restaurant "Bar" they were eating the usual dish - mushrooms sauce pikan for three rubles seventy-five kopecks a serving. This is an amateur business - it's like licking a galosh ... Oo-o-o-o ...

The side hurts unbearably, and the distance of my career is clearly visible to me: tomorrow ulcers will appear, and, one wonders, how will I treat them? In the summer you can hit the road to Sokolniki, there is a very special good grass, and, besides, you will get drunk on sausage heads for free, citizens will scribble greasy paper, you will get drunk. And if it weren’t for some grimza that sings in a circle in the moonlight - “dear Aida”, so that the heart falls, it would be great. Now where are you going? Didn't they hit you with a boot? Billy. Did you get a brick in the ribs? It's enough to eat. I have experienced everything, I reconcile myself with my fate, and if I cry now, it is only from physical pain and from hunger, because my spirit has not yet died away ... The spirit of a dog is tenacious.

But my body is broken, beaten, people abused it enough. After all, the main thing is that: as he hit it with boiling water, it ate under the wool, and therefore there is no protection for the left side. I can very easily get pneumonia, and if I get it, I, citizens, will die of hunger. With pneumonia, one is supposed to lie on the front door under the stairs, and who will take the place of me, lying single dog, will run through weed boxes in search of food? A lung will catch, I will crawl on my stomach, I will weaken, and any specialist will knock me to death with a stick. And the janitors with badges will grab me by the legs and throw me onto a cart...

Janitors are the most vile scum of all the proletarians. Human cleansing is the lowest category. The cook comes across different. For example, the late Vlas from Prechistenka. How many lives he saved! Because the most important thing during an illness is to intercept the cous. And so, it used to be, say the old dogs, Vlas waved a bone, and on it was an eighth of meat. God rest him for being a real person, the lordly cook of the Counts Tolstoy, and not from the Council of Normal Nutrition. What they get up there in a normal diet, the dog's mind is incomprehensible! After all, they, the bastards, cook cabbage soup from stinking corned beef, and those poor fellows don’t know anything! Run, eat, lap!

Some typist gets four and a half chervonets in the ninth category, well, really, her lover will give her phildepers stockings. Why, how much bullying she must endure for this phildepers! A typist will come running, because for four and a half chervonets you won’t go to the Bar! She does not have enough for the cinema, and the cinema for women is the only consolation in life. Trembling, grimacing, but bursting. Just think - forty kopecks from two dishes, and they, both of these dishes, are not worth five alt, because the head of the household stole the remaining twenty-five kopecks. Does she really need such a table? She also has a problem with the top of her right lung, and female disease, in the service they deducted from her, fed rotten meat in the canteen, there she is, there she is !! Runs into the gateway in lover's stockings. Her legs are cold, her stomach is blowing, because her hair is like mine, and she wears cold pants, so, lacy appearance. Rip for a lover. Put on some flannel, try it. He will yell:

- How ugly you are! I'm tired of my Matryona, I've been tormented with flannel pants, now my time has come. I am now the chairman, and no matter how much I steal - everything, everything is on female body, on cancer necks, on Abrau-Durso! Because I was hungry enough in my youth, it will be with me, eh afterlife does not exist.

I pity her, I'm sorry. But I feel even more sorry for myself. Not out of selfishness I say, oh no, but because we really are in unequal conditions. At least she's warm at home, well, but me, and me! Where will I go? Beaten, scalded, spat on, where will I go? U-u-u-u!..

- Cut, cut, cut! Sharik, oh Sharik! What are you whining about, poor thing? BUT? Who hurt you?.. Uh...

Witch - a dry blizzard rattled the gates and drove the young lady on the ear with a broomstick. She fluffed her skirt up to her knees, exposed cream-colored stockings and a narrow strip of badly laundered lace underwear, strangled the words and swept the dog away.

“Oh my god... what a weather... wow... and my stomach hurts. It's corned beef, it's corned beef! And when will it all end?

Bending her head, the young lady rushed to the attack, broke through the gate, and in the street she began to turn, tear, scatter, then screwed with a snow propeller, and she disappeared.

And the dog remained in the gateway and, suffering from a mutilated side, clung to the cold massive wall, suffocated and firmly decided that he would not go anywhere else from here, he would die here, in the gateway. Despair overwhelmed him. His heart was so bitter and painful, so lonely and frightening, that small dog tears, like pimples, crawled out of his eyes and immediately dried up. The damaged side stuck out in frozen lumps, and between them ominous red stains from the var looked. How senseless, stupid, cruel cooks! "Ball" she called him! What the hell is Sharik like? Sharik means round, well-fed, stupid, eats oatmeal, the son of noble parents, and he is shaggy, lanky and torn, a fried hat, a homeless dog. However, thank you for your kind words.

The door across the street to the brightly lit store slammed and a citizen emerged. It is a citizen, and not a comrade, and even more likely, a master. Closer - clearer - sir. Do you think I judge by the coat? Nonsense. Coats are now worn by many of the proletarians. True, the collars are not the same, there is nothing to say about this, but still one can confuse them from a distance. But in the eyes - here you can’t confuse it either near or from afar! Oh, the eyes are a big thing! Like a barometer. Everything is visible - who has a great dryness in his soul, who for no reason can poke the toe of his boot into the ribs, and who himself is afraid of everyone. Here is the last lackey, and it is pleasant to poke at the ankle. Afraid - get it! If you're afraid, then you're standing... Rrr... gau-gau.

The gentleman confidently crossed the street in a blizzard and moved into the gateway. Yes, yes, you can see it all. This rotten corned beef will not eat, and if it is served to him somewhere, he will raise such a scandal, write to the newspapers - I, Philip Philippovich, have been fed!

Here he is getting closer, closer. This one eats plentifully and does not steal. This one will not kick with his foot, but he himself is not afraid of anyone, and is not afraid because he is always full. He is a master of mental labor, with a cultured pointed beard and gray mustache, fluffy and dashing, like French knights, but the smell of a blizzard flies from him bad, - a hospital and a cigar.

What the hell, one wonders, carried him to the cooperative of the central farm? Here he is nearby ... What is he looking for? Uuuu... What could he buy in a crappy shop, is Okhotny Ryad not enough for him? What?! Kol-ba-su. Sir, if you saw what this sausage is made of, you would not come close to the store. Give it to me!

The dog mustered the rest of his strength and crept out of the doorway onto the pavement in a frenzy. The blizzard clapped a gun overhead, tossed up the huge letters of the linen poster "Is rejuvenation possible?".

Naturally, perhaps. The smell rejuvenated me, lifted me from my belly, with burning waves cramped my empty stomach for two days, the smell that defeated the hospital, the heavenly smell of chopped mare with garlic and pepper. I feel, I know, in the right pocket of his fur coat he has a sausage. He is above me. Oh my lord! Look at me I'm dying. Our slavish soul, vile share!

Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog", subtitled " Monstrous story", was not published during the life of the writer. It was first published in 1968. ("Student". London. Nos. 9, 10; "Edges". Frankfurt. No. 69). In the USSR, it was published in the Znamya magazine (No. 6) only in 1987.

The author's date is on the manuscript: January-March 1925. The story was intended for the magazine "Nedra", where "Diaboliad" and " Fatal eggs". The plot of "Heart of a Dog", like the story "Fatal Eggs", goes back to the work of the great English science fiction writer HG Wells (1866-1946) - to the novel "The Island of Dr. Moreau".

The book tells about how a maniac professor in his laboratory on a desert island is creating unusual "hybrids", turning people into animals through surgery. The name "Heart of a Dog" is taken from a tavern couplet placed in the book by A.V.

Laifert's "Balagany" (1922): For the second pie - Stuffing from frog legs, With onion, pepper Yes, with a dog's heart. The name can be related to past life Klim Chugunkin, who earned his living by playing the balalaika in taverns.

On March 7, 1925, the author read the first part of the story for the first time on literary meeting"Nikitinsky Subbotniks", and on March 21 - the second part. The meeting was attended by M. Ya. Schneider, who later wrote about his impressions as follows: "This is the first literary work who dares to be himself. The time has come to realize the attitude towards what happened "(to the October Revolution of 1917). The OGPU agent present there reported to his superiors somewhat differently:" Such things read in the most brilliant literary circle, much more dangerous than the useless-harmless speeches of writers of the 101st grade at meetings of the All-Russian Union of Poets.

<...>The whole thing is written in hostile tones, breathing endless contempt for Sovstroy.<...>and denies all his achievements.<...>The second and last part of Bulgakov's story "The Heart of a Dog" aroused strong indignation of the two communist writers who were there and the general delight of all the rest.<...>If, and similarly, roughly disguised (for all this "humanization" is only emphatically noticeable, careless make-up) attacks appear on book market USSR, then the White Guard abroad, exhausted no less than us from book hunger, and even more from the fruitless search for an original, biting plot, can only envy the exceptional conditions for counter-revolutionary authors in our country. "Of course, similar statements"competent" employees could not pass without a trace, and the story was banned.

However, people experienced in literature accepted the story and praised it. Vikenty Veresaev wrote to the poet Maximilian Voloshin in April 1925: "I was very pleased to read your review of M. Bulgakov<...>his humorous things are pearls, promising him as an artist of the first rank. But censorship cuts him mercilessly. Recently they slaughtered the wonderful thing "Heart of a Dog", and he completely loses heart. "On May 7, 1926, as part of the campaign sanctioned by the Central Committee to combat the "Smenovekhovstvo", Bulgakov's apartment was searched and the manuscript of the writer's diary and two copies of the typescript "Heart of a Dog" were confiscated ". Only after more than three years, what was confiscated during the search was returned to the author thanks to the assistance of Maxim Gorky. "Heart of a Dog" was supposed to be staged at the Moscow Art Theater. On March 2, 1926, Bulgakov concluded an agreement with the theater, which was terminated on April 19 due to a censorship ban on the work 1927. In "The Heart of a Dog" there are characteristic signs of the time from December 1924 to March 1925. The epilogue of the story mentions the March fog, from which Sharik, who had regained his canine hypostasis, suffered from headaches. , checking if there are any numbers with the participation of cats ("Solomonovsky ... four of some ... Yusse ms and man dead dots ... Nikitin ... elephants and the limit of human dexterity"), exactly corresponds to the programs of the beginning of 1925.

It was then that the tour took place aerial gymnasts"Four Yussems" and the tightrope walker Eton, whose number was called "The Man at the Dead Center". The story begins with the image of Moscow, seen through the eyes of Sharik, stray dog, useless, "knowing" life is far from its best side. The picture of the city is realistic, even naturalistic: chic restaurants where “the standard dish is mushrooms, pikan sauce”, and a canteen “normal food for employees of the Central Council of the National Economy”, in which cabbage soup is cooked from “stinky corned beef”. "Comrades", "gentlemen", "proletarians" live here. Everything shows an unsightly underside: devastation all around, streets, houses, people distorted in a terrible grimace. Houses, like people, live their own independent life(Kalabukhovsky house). Of considerable importance in the plot of the story is the ominous landscape: "A blizzard in the gateway roars my waste", "a witch, a dry blizzard rattled the gates", "a blizzard slammed from a gun over my head." One of the main characters of the story - Professor Preobrazhensky - a world-famous scientist, doctor, clever, absolutely sure that "the devastation is not in the closets, but in the heads", reflects on what is happening like this: after all, the Kalabukhovsky house stood before the revolution, and no one he stole galoshes, and there were carpets in the front door, and the staircase was clean, in flowers, but other people came and "in April of the seventeenth year, one fine day, all galoshes disappeared<...>3 sticks, a coat and a samovar at the porter", and that's when the devastation began.

The idea of ​​transforming the world is old and noble, it was supported and developed the best minds in history, but this is the idea of ​​transformation, not destruction. From the very first pages of the story, the reader is immersed in an atmosphere of destruction, devastation, in a world where everything is built according to the law: "Who was nothing, he will become everything." These "no one" live in the Kalabukhov house, it is thanks to them that "devastation" occurs. They don't do business, they sing. In this world, universal norms and laws of behavior cease to operate. The surname Preobrazhensky is not accidental. Philipp Philippovich is not just a doctor, he is a "magician", "wizard", "sorcerer", a reformer who is trying to find a way to "improve the human race". But his experiment leads to unexpected results. The unfortunate dog Sharik becomes Sharikov's citizen. The process of influence begins with the word that Shvonder carries. In his opinion, Sharikov is a "proletarian", a "worker", which the professor cannot understand in any way. "But why are you a hard worker?" he wonders. And the logic of the "proletarians" is as follows: "Yes, you know - not a Nepman." Sharikov is unaware that everything that Professor Preobrazhensky has has been acquired by his own labor, he is not embarrassed that he lives and feeds himself at the expense of the professor: after all, why work if you can take it away. As you know, the Leninist phrase "Rob the loot!", including that acquired by intellectual labor, was one of the most popular during the days of the revolution. The noble idea of ​​"equality and brotherhood" has degenerated into a primitive egalitarianism and outright robbery. Both Sharikov and Shvonder are artificially bred people, only different ways. The operation to transplant the pituitary gland "humanized" the dog within a week, the "operation" to "humanize" Schwonder lasted longer, but the result is essentially the same.

These "people" have only external human characteristics, insufficient for the definition of "human" to be applicable to them. Millions of Schwonders have been taught: to become a "new man", the master of life, you do not need to work hard and make any special efforts, it is enough that you are a "proletarian" - which means that you have the right to be the "master of life". Sharikov's conviction of his class superiority provokes an outburst of indignation from Preobrazhensky and Bormental: "You are at the lowest stage of development<...>in the presence of two people with a university education, you allow yourself to give some advice on a cosmic scale and cosmic stupidity on how to share everything ... "With the appearance of Sharikov, devastation begins in the professor's apartment, it takes on catastrophic proportions, and instead of to do business, operate, Preobrazhensky is forced to receive Shvonder, listen to threats, defend himself, write countless papers in order to legitimize the existence of Polygraph Poligrafovich. but after all, there is no life without one's own work. This author's thought is very important. Bolshevik revolutionaries are only engaged in what they do not do their own thing: they lead, not knowing how to lead, they destroy what they did not create, they remake everything, rebuild everything. The experiment of the Bolsheviks to create a "new" central problem story. Professor Preobrazhensky does not like the Bolsheviks, but he also wants to "improve the human race" with his surgical methods. And here is the conclusion made by the professor: Sharikov - violence against nature! “Explain to me, please, why it is necessary to artificially fabricate Spinoza, when any woman can safely give birth to him at any time. After all, Madame Lomonosov gave birth to this famous woman in Kholmogory!<...>My discovery, the devil would eat it,<...>costs exactly one broken penny...<...>Theoretically, this is interesting.<...>Well, practically what? Who is in front of you now? - Preobrazhensky pointed towards the observation room, where Sharikov rested. "What could come out of Klim Chugunkin, a drunkard with three convictions, who died in a pub from a stab in the heart? The answer is simple - Klim Chugunkin.

Another thing is terrifying: the “advanced” proletarian, for whom a state post is prepared, becomes a “mixture” of a criminal and a dog. But Sharikov would have gone far, because people like him are comfortable. The Sharikovs are ready to obey and subjugate. And the power of the proletariat is the basis of the proletarian ideology. It is impossible to change overnight what has evolved over the centuries. The collapse of such experiments is inevitable, because it is impossible to "humanize" something that has ceased to be a person, having lost the spiritual and moral basis on which relations between society and the individual are built. That's why the dog humanization experiment failed just like the tragic communist "experiment". Time has shown how right M. Bulgakov was in his insights.

The great Russian satirist M.A. Bulgakov created a very accurate and realistic image in his semi-fantastic works
the reality that arose in Russia after the revolution. In the novel "Days of the Turbins" and early stories we see
a man caught in a whirlpool of revolutionary changes, in the story "Heart of a Dog" we are transported to Moscow in the 30s, a novel
The Master and Margarita describes Moscow in the 1930s. The new reality is conceived in a grotesque manner, but this is precisely what
allows the author to expose all those absurdities and contradictions that he saw around him in life.

So, the scene of the story "Heart of a Dog" is Moscow, the time is 1924. The basis of the narrative is an internal monologue
Sharik, always hungry, miserable street dog. He is very intelligent, in his own way evaluates the life of the street, life, customs,
the characters of Moscow during the NEP with its numerous shops, tea houses, taverns on Myasnitskaya "with sawdust on the floor,
evil clerks who hate dogs”, “where they played the harmonica and smelled of sausages”.

The whole chilled, hungry dog ​​observes the life of the street and draws conclusions: “The janitors of all the proletarians are the most
vile scum." The cook comes across different. For example, the late Vlas from Prechistenka. How many lives saved. He sympathizes
to a poor young lady-typist, frozen, "running into the doorway in her lover's phildepers stockings." “To her and to the cinema
not enough, they deducted from her in the service, fed rotten meat in the dining room, and half of her canteen forty kopecks
stole…” In his thoughts-representations, Sharik contrasts the poor girl with the image of a triumphant boor - the new owner
life: “I am now the chairman, and no matter how much I steal, everything is for the female body, for cancer necks, for Abrau-Dyurso.” "I'm sorry
her, sorry. And I feel even more sorry for myself, ”complains Sharik.

Another pole of the story is Professor Preobrazhensky, who came to Bulgakov's story from Prechistenka, where
settled hereditary intelligentsia. A recent Muscovite, Bulgakov knew and loved this area. He himself settled in Obukhov
(Clean) Lane, "Fatal Eggs" and "Heart of a Dog" are written here. Here lived people close in spirit and culture.
Professor N.M.
Pokrovsky. But, in essence, it reflected the type of thinking and best features that layer of the Russian intelligentsia, which in
surrounded by Bulgakov was called "Prechistenskaya". Bulgakov respectfully and lovingly treated his scientist hero,
Professor Preobrazhensky is the embodiment of the outgoing Russian culture, the culture of the spirit, the aristocracy. But here's the irony of the times:
proud and majestic Philip Filippovich, who is full of old aphorisms, the luminary of Moscow genetics,
a brilliant surgeon, engaged in profitable operations to rejuvenate aging ladies and brisk old men. The author's sarcasm against the prosperous Nepmen and former proletarians is merciless: they seize power and money and indulge in debauchery, thinking only about the body, and not about the soul.

So, Preobrazhensky sees Moscow through the eyes of a hereditary intellectual. He is outraged that he had to be removed from the stairs
carpets, because people in dirty galoshes began to walk up these stairs, and you can no longer buy vodka in the store,
because "God knows what they splashed there." But most importantly, he does not understand why everyone in Moscow is talking about
devastation, but at the same time they only sing revolutionary songs Yes, they are looking at how to do badly to the one who lives badly to the one who lives
better. He does not like lack of culture, dirt, devastation, aggressive rudeness, complacency of the new masters of life. "It -
mirage, smoke, fiction” – this is how the professor assesses the new Moscow.

In connection with the professor, one of the leading, cross-cutting themes of Bulgakov's work begins to sound in the story - the theme of the House as
focus human life. the Bolsheviks destroyed the House as the basis of the family, as the basis of society, everywhere there is a furious
fight for housing square meters. Maybe that's why in Bulgakov's stories and plays the stable satirical
figure - the chairman of the house committee? He, the chairman of the house committee, is the true center of the small world, the center of power and the past, predatory
life. Such an administrator, confident in his permissiveness, is Shvonder in the story “The Heart of a Dog”, a man in
leather jacket, black man. He, accompanied by "comrades", comes to Professor Preobrazhensky in order to seize
addition of extra space, select two rooms. Conflict with uninvited guests gets poignant: "You're a hater
the proletariat! the woman said proudly. "Yes, I don't like the proletariat," Philipp Philippovich agreed sadly.

And finally, the main event of the story takes place: the professor manages to transplant the human pituitary gland into a dog. As a result
the most complicated operation, an ugly, primitive non-human creature appeared, who completely inherited the proletarian essence
his "ancestor", the drunkard Klim Chugunkin. The harmless Ball turns into a man from the street. The first spoken by him
the words were swearing, the first distinct word was "bourgeois". And then - street words: “do not push!”, “scoundrel”, “get off
footboards, etc. A monstrous homunculus, a man with a dog disposition, whose "basis" was a lumpen - the proletarian Klim
Chugunkin, feels himself the master of life, he is arrogant, swaggering, aggressive. The grin of life is that, barely standing on the back
limbs, Sharikov is ready to oppress, to drive into a corner the "daddy" who gave birth to him - the professor. This is a human being
demands a residence document from the professor, and Sharikov is sure that the house committee will help him in this, which "interests
protects."

Whose interests, may I ask?
- It is known whose - labor element.
Philip Philipovich rolled his eyes.
Why are you a hard worker?
- Yes, you know, not Nepman

Sharikov grows bolder every day. In addition, he finds an ally - the theoretician Shvonder. it is he, Shvonder, who demands extradition
document to Sharikov, arguing that a document is the most important thing in the world. The formalism and bureaucracy of that time haunted
our country to this day. The scary thing is that the bureaucratic system does not need the professor's science. She costs nothing
it is desirable to appoint a person, of course, having issued it in an appropriate way and reflecting it, as it should be, in the documents.

Lumpen Sharikov instinctively "smelled" the main credo of the new masters of life, all Sharikovs: rob, steal, take everything away
created and also main principle created "socialist" society - a general leveling, called
equality. What this led to is well known.

The last, final chord of Sharikov's activity is a libelous denunciation of Professor Preobrazhensky. Need
It should be noted that even then, in the 1920s, denunciation became one of the foundations of a socialist society. and the exhausted professor
resurrects a cute dog, unable to withstand the neighborhood with Sharikov. Does this mean that he manages to protect himself from everything
terrible that exists in Moscow?

So, Moscow of the 1920s in Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog" is a city of outgoing Russian culture, a city of outgoing
Russian culture, a city of aggressive proletarians, lack of culture, dirt and vulgarity.

Bulgakov's legendary work "Heart of a Dog" is studied at literature lessons in grade 9. Its fantastic content reflects quite real historical events. In Heart of a Dog, plan analysis involves detailed analysis all artistic aspects works. It is this information that is presented in our article, including the analysis of the work, criticism, problems, compositional structure and history of creation.

Brief analysis

Year of writing The story was written in 1925.

History of creation- the work is created quickly - in three months, diverges in samizdat, however, it was published at home only in 1986 during the period of perestroika.

Topic- rejection of violent intervention in history, political change in society, the theme of human nature, its nature.

Composition- a ring composition based on the image of the main character.

Genre- socio-philosophical satirical story.

Direction- satire, fantasy (as a way of presenting a literary text).

History of creation

Bulgakov's work was written in 1925. In just three months, a brilliant work was born, which later gained a legendary future and nationwide fame.

It was being prepared for publication in the Nedra magazine. After reading the text Chief Editor, naturally, refused to publish such a book openly hostile to the existing political system. In 1926, the author's apartment was searched and the manuscript of The Heart of a Dog was confiscated. The original title of the book was “Dog's Happiness. A monstrous story”, she later received modern name, which is associated with lines from the book by A. V. Laifert.

The very idea of ​​the plot, according to researchers of Mikhail Bulgakov's work, was borrowed by the author from the science fiction writer G. Wells. Bulgakov's plot becomes an almost veiled parody of government circles and their policies. The writer twice read his story, for the first time - at the literary meeting "Nikitinsky Subbotniks". After the next performance, the audience was delighted, with the exception of a few communist writers. During the life of the author, his work was not published, largely due to the disgraced content, but there was another reason. “Heart of a Dog” was first published abroad, which automatically “sentenced” the text to persecution at home. Therefore, only in 1986, 60 years later, it appeared on the pages of the Zvezda magazine. Despite the disgrace, Bulgakov hoped to publish the text during his lifetime, it was rewritten, copied, passed on by the writer's friends and acquaintances, admiring the boldness and originality of the images.

Topic

The writer raises problem the ideology and politics of Bolshevism, the lack of education of those who got to power, the impossibility of forcibly changing the order in history. The results of the revolution are deplorable, it, like the operation of Professor Preobrazhensky, led to completely unexpected consequences, revealed the most terrible diseases society.

Topic human nature, nature, characters are also affected by the author. It gives a semi-transparent hint that the person feels too powerful, but unable to control the fruits of their actions.

Briefly about issues works: violent change social order and the way of life will inevitably lead to disastrous results, the “experiment” will be unsuccessful.

Idea Bulgakov's story is quite transparent: any artificial intervention in nature, society, history, politics, and other areas will not lead to positive changes. The author adheres to a healthy conservatism.

The basic idea The story says the following: an uneducated, immature “people” like the “Sharikovs” cannot be given power, they are morally immature, such an experiment will turn into a disaster for society and history. Too narrow will be the conclusion about the artistic goals of the author from the position political system and politicians of the 20-30s, so both ideas have the right to life.

The meaning of the name works is that not all people have normal, spiritually “healthy” hearts from birth. There are people on earth who live the life of Sharikov, they have dog (bad, evil) hearts from birth.

Composition

The story has a circular composition, which can be traced by following the content of the work.

The story begins with a description of a dog that soon becomes a man; ends where it began: Sharikov is operated on and again takes on the appearance of a contented animal.

The features of the composition are diary entries Bormental about the results of the experiment, about the rebirth of the patient, about his achievements and degradation. Thus, the history of Sharikov's "life" was documented by the professor's assistant. bright key point composition is Sharikov's acquaintance with Shvonder, who has a decisive influence on the formation of the personality of a newly-made citizen.

There are two main characters in the center of the story: Professor Preobrazhensky and Polygraph Sharikov, they play a plot-forming role. In the plot of the work, the author’s technique is interesting, when life is shown through the eyes of the dog Sharik, his “dog-like” thoughts about the weather, about people and own life- a reflection of the little that is needed for a peaceful existence. The culmination of the story is the rebirth of the Polygraph, his moral and spiritual decay, the highest manifestation of which was the plan to kill the professor. In the denouement, Bormetal and Philip Philipovich return the experimental subject to its original form, thereby correcting their mistake. This moment is very symbolic, as it determines what the story teaches: some things can be corrected if you admit your mistake.

main characters

Genre

The genre “Heart of a Dog” is usually referred to as a story. In fact, it is a social or political satire. The interweaving of sharp satire with philosophical reflections on the future after the revolution gives the right to call the work a socio-philosophical satirical story with elements of fantasy.

"Dog's heart"- a story by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov.

Story

The story was written in January-March 1925. During a search conducted at Bulgakov's by the OGPU on May 7, 1926 (order 2287, case 45), the manuscript of the story was also confiscated from the writer. Three editions of the text have been preserved (all in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library): the chapter "Give the word to the textologist".

In the USSR in the 1960s, the story was distributed in samizdat [ ] .

In 1967, without the knowledge and against the will of the writer's widow E. S. Bulgakova, the casually copied text of "Heart of a Dog" was transferred to the West: the chapter "My French Queen ..." simultaneously to several publishing houses and in 1968 was published in the magazine "Frontiers" (Frankfurt ) and in Alec Flegon's Student magazine (London).

Plot

The story of a dog that turned into a man quickly became known in medical circles, and then turned out to be the property of the tabloid press. Colleagues express their admiration to Professor Preobrazhensky, Sharik is demonstrated in a medical lecture hall, and curious people begin to come to the professor's house. But Preobrazhensky himself is not happy with the outcome of the operation, as he understands that he can get out of Sharik.

Meanwhile, Sharik falls under the influence of the communist activist Shvonder, who inspired him that he is a proletarian suffering from oppression by the bourgeoisie (in the person of Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Dr. Bormenthal), and turned him against the professor.

Shvonder, being the chairman of the house committee, gives Sharik documents in the name of Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov, arranging him to work in the service for trapping and destroying homeless animals (in "cleaning") and forcing the professor to officially register Sharikov in his apartment. In the "cleaning" service, Sharikov quickly makes a career, becoming the boss. Under the bad influence of Shvonder, having superficially read communist literature and feeling like "the master of the situation", Sharikov begins to be rude to the professor, to behave cheekily at home, to steal things with money and to pester servants. In the end, it comes to the fact that Sharikov writes a false denunciation of the professor and doctor Bormental. This denunciation only thanks to the doctor's influential patient does not reach law enforcement agencies. Then Preobrazhensky and Bormental order Sharikov to get out of the apartment, to which he replies with a categorical refusal. The doctor and the professor, unable to endure the impudent and impudent antics of Polygraph Poligrafovich and expecting only the worsening of the situation, decide to perform a reverse operation and transplant the canine pituitary gland to Sharikov, after which he gradually begins to lose human form and turns back into a dog...

Characters

Data

• The prototype of the Kalabukhov House, in which the main events of the story unfold, was the profitable house of the architect S. F. Kulagin (house number 24 on Prechistenka Street), built with his money in 1904.
• Philip Filippovich Preobrazhensky constantly sings "From Seville to Grenada ... In the quiet twilight of nights." This line is from Tchaikovsky's romance "Don Juan Serenade", the verses to which are taken from A. K. Tolstoy's poem "Don Juan". This is probably a play on the professor's occupation: he restores sexual "youth" to his withered patients.
• The professor performs an operation on Sharik from December 24 to January 6 - from Catholic to Orthodox Christmas Eve. On January 7th, Christmas, Sharik's transformation takes place.
• There is an opinion that Sharikov can be perceived as a carrier of the demonic principle. This can be seen in his appearance: the hair on his head is "hard, like bushes in an uprooted field," like a devil. At some point, Sharikov shows Professor Preobrazhensky a shish, and a shish is the hair standing on end on the devil's head. :642
• Perhaps the prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky was his uncle, mother's brother, Nikolai Mikhailovich Pokrovsky, a gynecologist. His apartment coincides in detail with the description of Philipp Philippovich's apartment, and besides, he had a dog. This hypothesis is also confirmed by Bulgakov's first wife, T. N. Lappa, in her memoirs. The prototypes of Professor Preobrazhensky's patients were the writer's acquaintances and well-known public figures that time. :642-644 But there are other hypotheses, see Philipp Philippovich Preobrazhensky for details.
• House committees, which Professor Preobrazhensky complained about, and one of which was headed by Shvonder, really worked very poorly after the revolution. An example is the order to the residents of the Kremlin dated October 14, 1918: “[...] house committees do not at all fulfill their duties assigned to them by law: the dirt in courtyards and squares, in houses, on stairs, in corridors and apartments is terrifying. Garbage from the apartments is not taken out for weeks, stands on the stairs, spreading the infection. Ladders are not only not washed, but also not swept. Manure, garbage, corpses of dead cats and dogs have been lying in the yards for weeks. Homeless cats roam everywhere, being constant carriers of the infection. The “Spanish” disease is circulating in the city, which has entered the Kremlin and has already caused deaths ... "
• Abyrvalg - the second word spoken by Sharik after turning from a dog into a man - this is the reversed word "Glavryba" - the Main Directorate of Fisheries and the State Fishing Industry under the People's Commissariat of Food, which in 1922-1924 was the main economic body in charge of fishing grounds RSFSR. The first similarly constructed word was "abyr" (from "fish").
• The rock group Agatha Christie recorded the song Heart of a Dog, the text of which is Sharik's monologue.

The story as a political satire

The most common political interpretation of the story refers it to the very idea of ​​the "Russian revolution", the "awakening" of the social consciousness of the proletariat. Sharikov is traditionally perceived as an allegorical image of the lumpen-proletariat, who unexpectedly received a large number of rights and freedoms, but quickly discovered selfish interests and the ability to betray and destroy both their own kind (a former homeless dog climbs the social ladder, destroying other homeless animals), and those who endowed them with these rights. At the same time, it should be noted that Klim Chugunkin earned money by playing music in taverns and was a criminal. The finale of the story looks artificial, without third-party intervention (deus ex machina) the fate of the creators of Sharikov looks predetermined. It is believed that in the story Bulgakov predicted the mass repressions of the 1930s.

A number of Bulgakov scholars believe that The Heart of a Dog was a political satire on the leadership of the state in the mid-1920s. In particular, that Sharikov-Chugunkin is Stalin (both have an “iron” second surname), prof. Preobrazhensky is Lenin (who transformed the country), his assistant Dr. Bormental, constantly in conflict with Sharikov, is Trotsky (Bronstein), Shvonder - Kamenev, assistant Zina - Zinoviev, Daria - Dzerzhinsky and so on.

Censorship

At the reading of the manuscript of the story during a meeting of writers in Gazetny Lane, an OGPU agent was present, who described the work as follows:

[…] such things, read in the most brilliant Moscow literary circle, are much more dangerous than the useless harmless speeches of writers of the 101st grade at meetings of the All-Russian Union of Poets.

The first edition of The Heart of a Dog contained almost open allusions to a number of political figures of that time, in particular to the Soviet plenipotentiary representative in London, Christian Rakovsky, and a number of other functionaries known in the circles of the Soviet intelligentsia for scandalous love affairs.

Bulgakov hoped to publish The Heart of a Dog in the Nedra almanac, but the story was recommended not even to be read to Glavlit. Nikolay Angarsky, who liked the work, managed to pass it on to Lev Kamenev, but he declared that "this sharp pamphlet on modernity should by no means be printed." In 1926, during a search in Bulgakov's apartment, the manuscripts of The Heart of a Dog were confiscated and returned to the author only after the petition of Maxim Gorky three years later.

Screen adaptations