At one time, the satirical story of M. Bulgakov caused a lot of talk. In "Heart of a Dog" the heroes of the work are bright and memorable; the plot is fantasy mixed with reality and a subtext in which sharp criticism of Soviet power is openly read. Therefore, the work was very popular among dissidents in the 60s, and in the 90s, after its official publication, it was completely recognized as prophetic.
The theme of the tragedy of the Russian people is clearly visible in this work, in the "Heart of a Dog" the main characters enter into an irreconcilable conflict among themselves and will never understand each other. And, although the proletarians won in this confrontation, Bulgakov in the novel reveals to us the whole essence of the revolutionaries and their type of new person in the person of Sharikov, leading to the idea that they will not create or do anything good.
There are only three main characters in Heart of a Dog, and the narration is mainly conducted from Bormental's diary and through the dog's monologue.
The character that appeared as a result of the operation from the mongrel Sharik. The transplantation of the pituitary and gonads of the drunkard and rowdy Klim Chugunkin turned a sweet and friendly dog into Polygraph Polygraphych, a parasite and a hooligan.
Sharikov embodies all the negative features of the new society: he spits on the floor, throws cigarette butts, does not know how to use the restroom and constantly swears. But even this is not the worst - Sharikov quickly learned to write denunciations and found a calling in the murder of his eternal enemies, cats. And while he deals only with cats, the author makes it clear that he will do the same with people who stand in his way.
This is the low power of the people and Bulgakov saw a threat to the whole society in the rudeness and narrow-mindedness with which the new revolutionary government solves problems.
An experimenter who uses innovative developments in solving the problem of rejuvenation through organ transplants. He is a well-known world scientist, a surgeon respected by all, whose "speaking" surname gives him the right to experiment with nature.
Used to live in a big way - servants, a house of seven rooms, chic dinners. His patients are former nobles and the highest revolutionary officials who patronize him.
Preobrazhensky is a solid, successful and self-confident person. The professor - an opponent of any terror and Soviet power, calls them "blathers and idlers." He considers affection the only way to communicate with living beings and denies the new government precisely for radical methods and violence. His opinion: if people are accustomed to culture, then devastation will disappear.
The rejuvenation operation gave an unexpected result - the dog turned into a man. But the man came out completely useless, not amenable to education and absorbing the worst. Philipp Philippovich concludes that nature is not a field for experiments, and he interfered in its laws in vain.
Ivan Arnoldovich is completely devoted to his teacher. At one time, Preobrazhensky took an active part in the fate of a half-starved student - he enrolled in the department, and then took him on as an assistant.
The young doctor tried in every possible way to culturally develop Sharikov, and then moved to the professor altogether, as it became more and more difficult to cope with a new person.
The apotheosis was the denunciation that Sharikov wrote against the professor. At the climax, when Sharikov took out a revolver and was ready to use it, it was Bromenthal who showed firmness and rigidity, while Preobrazhensky hesitated, not daring to kill his creation.
The positive characterization of the heroes of "Heart of a Dog" emphasizes how important honor and dignity are for the author. Bulgakov described himself and his relatives in many of the features of both doctors, and in many respects would have acted the same way as they did.
The newly elected chairman of the house committee, who hates the professor as a class enemy. This is a schematic hero, without deep reasoning.
Shvonder completely bows to the new revolutionary government and its laws, and sees in Sharikov not a person, but a new useful unit of society - he can buy textbooks and magazines, participate in meetings.
Sh. can be called Sharikov's ideological mentor, he tells him about the rights in Preobrazhensky's apartment and teaches him to write denunciations. The chairman of the house committee, because of his narrow-mindedness and lack of education, always hesitates and passes in conversations with the professor, but this makes him hate him even more.
The list of characters in the story would not be complete without two au pairs - Zina and Daria Petrovna. They recognize the superiority of the professor, and, like Bormental, are completely devoted to him and agree to commit a crime for the sake of their beloved master. They proved this at the time of the second operation to turn Sharikov into a dog, when they were on the side of the doctors and exactly followed all their instructions.
You got acquainted with the characterization of the heroes of Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog", a fantastic satire that anticipated the collapse of Soviet power immediately after its appearance - the author, back in 1925, showed the whole essence of those revolutionaries and what they are capable of.
Artwork test
Professor Filipp Filippych Preobrazhensky, who is a brilliant doctor and an outstanding scientist, is one of the central characters in Mikhail Bulgakov's fantastic story "Heart of a Dog". A world-famous luminary and a talented experimental scientist plans to transplant the pituitary gland and human testicles to a stray dog Sharik, and brilliantly brings his plan to life. What came out of this the reader will learn in the story, in which Professor Preobrazhensky plays the key role of the creator, and then the educator of the Polygraph Polygraph Sharikov, who appeared as a result of the experiment.
(Evgeny Evstigneev as Professor Preobrazhensky, feature film "Heart of a Dog", USSR 1988, the film was shot in sepia color)
The action of the story takes place in Moscow in 1924 after the Bolsheviks led by Lenin came to power in the country. An outstanding medical genius lives in a huge seven-room apartment in the center of the capital and is engaged in research in the field of rejuvenation of the human body. This is a rather elderly man of 60 years old with a French pointed beard and a lush curled mustache, soaked through with the smell of tobacco and the hospital. Thanks to his mind, talented hands and diligence, he achieved a high position in pre-revolutionary society and was quite a wealthy and respected person. Apparently he received a good education, is the bearer of a high culture. He considers the Bolsheviks who came to power a temporary phenomenon and supports the "old order", because under him he lived very well. He considers the lack of elementary culture to be a misfortune for the proletarians, the ruin will only come to an end when at least elementary rules of education and culture are instilled in them.
The professor lives alone and solitary, engaged exclusively in work and research activities. His only friend and colleague is the young assistant Dr. Bormental, who is very devoted to his teacher and becomes a real support and support to the professor in his difficult struggle with the presumptuous Sharikov.
(Dog as Sharik. A rare photo from the filming of "Heart of a Dog" in 1988)
The professor brings the stray dog Sharik into the house and, having transplanted his pituitary gland and testes of the brawler and recidivist thief Klim Chugunkin, who died in a drunken fight, he ends up with a terrible rude, impudent and violator of the order Polygraph Polygraphych Sharikov. An opponent of violence, a sane and experienced professor is trying to re-educate the creation of his own hands, instill in him a reasonable, kind and eternal, but suffers a complete fiasco. It comes to threats with the use of weapons and the conflict between Preobrazhensky and Sharkov, which is his complete antipode, reaches its climax. Then Preobrazhensky realizes what a mistake his thoughtless intervention in nature was and, together with Dr. Bormental, performs an operation to turn Sharikov back into a dog.
Professor Preobrazhensky in Bulgakov's story is the embodiment of the outgoing pre-revolutionary era and its culture. An outstanding Russian scientist who got used to respect and honor in a past life, he has not yet encountered the power of the Bolsheviks and does not know their attitude towards the former. Unwittingly, he creates with his own hands a typical representative of the new government, who immediately begins to squeeze the scientist out of the world. This was the deep and terrible mistake of the Russian intelligentsia, which unknowingly helped the Bolsheviks strengthen their power, and then they also became the main initiators of their destruction.
Realizing his fatal mistake, the professor tries to fix everything, and at first glance he succeeds. However, the end of the story is not at all optimistic, because millions of people live in the country, in which Sharikov is still dormant, but when he wakes up and goes outside, he will do a lot of trouble.
The hero of the story "Heart of a Dog" is Professor of Medicine Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky. He deals with the then fashionable problem of human rejuvenation. We must pay tribute to the talent of the scientist. He is known for his work abroad. Hard worker: receives patients, and then, in the evening, studies medical literature. The professor is no stranger to small earthly joys: he loves to eat deliciously, to shine in a respected society in expensive clothes, to chat with his assistant Bormental on various slippery topics. In a word, a typical intellectual, to whom the Soviet government has not yet had time to finally cut off, as they say, oxygen. However, such a scientist suits the Bolsheviks quite well: he is not involved in politics.
The main events unfold after the appearance of the mongrel Sharik in the house of the professor. His character is surprisingly consonant with the “homo sovieticus”: the dog is ready for anything for a piece of sausage, he has an absurd and aggressive character. Passing by the porter, Sharik thinks: "I wish I could nip him on the proletarian callused leg." And he looks at the stuffed owl with such feelings: “And this owl is rubbish. Insolent. We will explain it."
The professor, who is fascinated by science, does not notice what kind of monster he has brought into the house. As an experiment, he transplants human seminal glands to Sharik, dreaming of doing good to humanity. In front of the astonished scientist, the dog gradually turns into a man.
Sharik, or already Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov, quickly finds his social niche in human society. Everything happens as in the Soviet state: the lower classes, having seized power, begin to crowd out everything that previously occupied this social living space. As a result, his "parent" Preobrazhensky himself almost finds himself on the street, and only his old connections save him from Sharikov's lawlessness.
Bulgakov shows the psychological type of a Russian scientist who has not yet encountered all the "charms" of the Bolshevik regime. His fur was still being stroked. But he, carried away by his developments, did not notice that he himself created such a representative of harsh power.
The ball literally squeezes the scientist out of the world. Behind the ridiculousness of the plot lies the deep tragedy of the Russian scientific intelligentsia, which in those years unwittingly helped the Bolsheviks to strengthen their positions. The Sharikovs gradually advanced to all the highest echelons of power and began not only to poison the fate of normal people, but also to decide it. They began to determine the foreign policy of the country.
The professor, in late remorse, complains about his mistake: “I cared about something completely different, about eugenics, about improving the human race. And I ran into rejuvenation. ” Realizing his fatal mistake, the professor becomes a participant in the crime: on the advice of Bormental, they decide to get rid of Sharikov and free humanity from this nightmare.
The professor decides to have one more operation and returns Sharikov to his previous state.
The ending of the story, however, is not prosperous, because outside the walls of the professor's house, where the dog Sharik is peacefully dozing, there are many people infected with Sharikov's microbe, and they will still do many bitter deeds in the country.
Starting my discussions about Professor Preobrazhensky, the hero of the work “Heart of a Dog”, I would like to dwell a little on some facts of the biography of the author - Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich (05/15/1891, Kyiv - 03/10/1940, Moscow), a Russian writer, theater playwright and director. All this in order to draw some parallels that will largely unite the author and his imaginary hero.
Bulgakov was born into the family of an associate professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy, but he himself soon became a student of the medical faculty of Kyiv University. In World War I, he worked as a front-line doctor. In the spring of 1918 he returned to Kyiv, where he practiced as a private venereologist. During the civil war of 1919, Bulgakov was a military doctor of the Ukrainian military army, then the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, the Red Cross, the Volunteer Army, etc. Having fallen ill with typhus in 1920, he was treated in Vladikavkaz, and after that he woke up writing talent. He will write to his cousin that, at last, he understood: his job is to write.
You can really compare Bulgakov with the prototype of the protagonist, they have too much in common. However, it is generally accepted that Preobrazhensky (professor) as an image was written off from his uncle Mikhail Afanasyevich, a famous doctor in Moscow, a gynecologist
In 1926, the OGPU searched the writer's house, and as a result, the manuscripts of The Heart of a Dog and the diary were seized.
This story was dangerous for the writer because it became a satire on Soviet power in the 20s and 30s. The newly minted class of the proletariat is represented here by heroes like the Shvonders and Sharikovs, who are absolutely far from the values of destroyed tsarist Russia.
All of them are opposed by Professor Preobrazhensky, whose quotes deserve special attention. This surgeon and scientist, who is the luminary of Russian science, appears for the first time at the moment when in the story the dog, the future Sharikov, dies in the city gateway - hungry and cold, with a burned side. The professor appears at the most painful hours for a dog. The dog's thoughts "voice" Preobrazhensky as a gentleman of culture, with an intelligent beard and mustache, like the French knights.
The main business of Professor Preobrazhensky is to treat people, to look for new ways to achieve longevity and effective means of rejuvenation. Of course, like any scientist, he could not live without experiments. He picks up the dog, and at the same time a plan is born in the doctor's head: he decides to perform a pituitary transplant operation. He does this experiment on a dog in the hope of finding an effective method for gaining a “second youth”. However, the consequences of the operation were unexpected.
Over the course of several weeks, the dog, which was given the nickname Sharik, becomes a person and receives documents for the surname Sharikov. Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Bormental are trying to instill in him worthy and noble human manners. However, their "education" does not bring any visible results.
Preobrazhensky expresses his opinion to the assistant Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental: it is necessary to understand the whole horror, consisting in the fact that Sharikov no longer has a dog's heart, but a human one, moreover, "the lousiest of all that exists in nature."
Bulgakov created a parody of the socialist revolution, described the clash of two classes, in which Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky is a professor and an intellectual, and the working class is Sharikov and his ilk.
The professor, like a real nobleman, accustomed to luxury, living in a 7-room apartment and every day eating different delicacies such as salmon, eels, turkey, roast beef, and washing it all down with cognac, vodka and wine, suddenly got into an unexpected situation. Unbridled and arrogant Sharikovs and Shvonders burst into his calm and proportionate aristocratic life.
Shvonder is a separate instance of the proletarian class, he and his company make up the house committee in the house where Preobrazhensky, the experimental professor, lives. They, however, seriously undertook to fight with him. But that one is also not so simple, Professor Preobrazhensky’s monologue about devastation in the minds says that he simply hates the proletariat and its interests, and as long as he has the opportunity to devote himself to his favorite business (science), he will be indifferent to petty swindlers and swindlers like Shvonder.
But with his household Sharikov, he enters into a serious struggle. If Shvonder presses purely outwardly, then you can’t just disown Sharikov, because it is he who is the product of his scientific activity and the product of an unsuccessful experiment. Sharikov brings such confusion and devastation to his house that in two weeks the professor experienced more stress than in all his years.
However, the image of Professor Preobrazhensky is very curious. No, he is by no means the embodiment of virtue. He, like any person, has his shortcomings, he is a rather selfish, narcissistic, conceited, but lively and real person. Preobrazhensky became the image of a real intellectual, fighting alone against the devastation that the generation of Sharikovs brings. Isn't this fact worthy of sympathy, respect and sympathy?
The story "Heart of a Dog" shows the reality of the 20s of the twentieth century. Dirty streets are described, where signs are hung everywhere with promises of a brighter future for people. An even more depressing mood is caused by bad, cold, inclement weather and the homeless image of a dog that, like most Soviet people in a new country under construction, literally survives and is in constant search of warmth and food.
It is in this chaos that one of the few intellectuals Preobrazhensky, a professor-aristocrat, who survived in a period of dangerous and difficult times, appears. Sharikov's character, still in his canine body, assessed him in his own way: that he "eats plentifully and does not steal, will not kick with his foot, and is not afraid of anyone, because he is always full."
The image of Preobrazhensky is like a ray of light, like an island of stability, satiety and well-being in the terrible reality of the post-war years. He is actually pleasant. But many do not like a person who, in general, everything is going well, but for whom it is not enough to have seven rooms - he wants another, eighth, to make a library in it.
However, the house committee began an intensified struggle against the professor and wished to take away his apartment from him. In the end, after all, the proletarians did not manage to harm the professor, and therefore this fact could not but please the reader.
But this is only one side of the medal of Preobrazhensky's life, and if you delve deeper into the essence of the matter, you can see a not very attractive picture. The wealth that Bulgakov's main character, Professor Preobrazhensky, possesses, it must be said, did not suddenly fall on his head either and was not inherited from wealthy relatives. He made his own wealth. And now he serves people who have received power into their own hands, because now it is their time to enjoy all the benefits.
Very interesting things are voiced by one of Preobrazhensky’s clients: “No matter how much I steal, everything goes to the female body, Abrau-Durso champagne and cancer necks.” But the professor, despite all his high morality, intelligence and sensitivity, does not try to reason with his patient, re-educate or express displeasure. He understands that he needs money to maintain his usual way of life without need: with all the necessary servants in the house, with a table filled with all sorts of dishes like sausages not from Mosselprom or caviar spread on crispy fresh bread.
In the work, Professor Preobrazhensky uses a dog's heart for his experiment. It is not because of his love for animals that he picks up an exhausted dog to feed or warm, but because, as it seems to him, a brilliant, but monstrous plan for him was born in his head. And then this operation is described in detail in the book, which causes only unpleasant emotions. As a result of the rejuvenation operation, the professor has a “newborn” person in his hands. That is why it is not in vain that Bulgakov gives a speaking surname and status to his hero - Preobrazhensky, a professor who implants the cerebellum of the recidivist thief Klimka in a dog that has fallen into his hands. It paid off, the professor did not expect such side effects.
Professor Preobrazhensky's phrases contain thoughts about education, which, in his opinion, could make Sharikov a more or less acceptable member of social society. But Sharikov was not given a chance. Preobrazhensky had no children, and he did not master the basics of pedagogy. Perhaps that is why his experiment did not go in the right direction.
And few people pay attention to the words of Sharikov that he, like a poor animal, was seized, slashed and now they disdain, and he, by the way, did not give his permission for the operation and can sue. And, what is most interesting, no one notices the truth behind his words.
Preobrazhensky became the first teacher of literature for Sharikov, although he understood that teaching to speak does not at all mean becoming a full-fledged person. He wanted to make a highly developed personality out of the beast. After all, the professor himself in the book is a standard of education and high culture and a supporter of the old, pre-revolutionary mores. He very clearly defined his position, speaking about the ensuing devastation and the inability of the proletariat to cope with it. The professor believes that people should first of all be taught the most elementary culture, he is sure that using brute force, nothing in the world can be achieved. He realizes that he created a creature with a dead soul, and finds the only way out: to do the reverse operation, since his educational methods did not work on Sharikov, because in a conversation with the maid Zina he noted: “You can’t fight anyone ... On a person and on an animal one can only act by suggestion."
But the skills of demagogy, as it turned out, are learned much easier and faster than the skills of creative activity. And Shvonder succeeds in educating Sharikov. He does not teach him grammar and mathematics, but begins immediately with the correspondence between Engels and Kautsky, as a result of which Sharikov, with his low level of development, despite the complexity of the topic, from which his “head is swollen”, came to the conclusion: “Take everything and share!" This idea of social justice was best understood by the people's authorities and the newly minted citizen Sharikov.
It should be noted that "Heart of a Dog" from all sides shows all the absurdity and madness of the new structure of society that arose after 1917. Professor Preobrazhensky understood this well. The character's quotes about devastation in their heads are unique. He says that if the doctor, instead of performing operations, starts to sing in chorus, he will be devastated. If he begins to urinate past the toilet, and all his servants do this, then devastation will begin in the restroom. Consequently, the devastation is not in the closets, but in the heads.
In general, the book "Heart of a Dog" is a real quote book. The main and vivid expressions of the professor were described in the text above, but there are a few more that also deserve the attention of the reader and will be interesting for various reflections.
“The one who is in no hurry anywhere succeeds everywhere.”
“Why was the carpet removed from the front stairs? What, Karl Marx forbids keeping carpets on the stairs?
- "Humanity itself takes care of this and in the evolutionary order every year stubbornly creates dozens of outstanding geniuses from the mass of all sorts of filth, decorating the globe."
- "What is this devastation of yours? An old woman with a stick? The witch who broke all the windows, put out all the lamps?"
