The story of a dog's heart literature. Heart of a Dog (story)
Year of writing:
1925
Reading time:
Description of the work:
Wide famous work dog's heart written by Mikhail Bulgakov in 1925. Three editions of the text have survived.
Mikhail Bulgakov brilliantly showed in his work full picture events that took place in those days not only in the country itself, but also in the minds of people. Class hostility, hatred and rudeness, lack of education and much more reigned. All these problems of society merged together in the image of Sharikov. When he became a man, he still wished to remain a dog.
Winter 1924/25 Moscow. Professor Philip Filippovich Preobrazhensky discovered a way to rejuvenate the body by transplanting animal endocrine glands into people. In his seven-room apartment in big house On Prechistenka he receives patients. The building is undergoing “densification”: new residents, “tenants,” are being moved into the apartments of the previous residents. The chairman of the house committee, Shvonder, comes to Preobrazhensky with a demand to vacate two rooms in his apartment. However, the professor, having called one of his high-ranking patients by phone, receives armor for his apartment, and Shvonder leaves with nothing.
Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Dr. Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental are having lunch in the professor's dining room. Choral singing can be heard from somewhere above - this is a general meeting of “tenants”. The professor is outraged by what is happening in the house: the carpet was stolen from the main staircase, the front door was boarded up and people are now walking through the back door, all the galoshes disappeared from the galosh rack in the entrance at once. “Devastation,” notes Bormental and receives the answer: “If instead of operating, I start singing in chorus in my apartment, I will be in ruins!”
Professor Preobrazhensky picks up a mongrel dog on the street, sick and with tattered fur, brings him home, instructs the housekeeper Zina to feed him and care for him. After a week, a clean and well-fed Sharik becomes affectionate, charming and beautiful dog.
The professor performs an operation - transplants Sharik with the endocrine glands of Klim Chugunkin, 25 years old, three times convicted of theft, who played the balalaika in taverns, and died from a knife blow. The experiment was a success - the dog does not die, but, on the contrary, gradually turns into a human: he gains height and weight, his hair falls out, he begins to speak. Three weeks later he is already a short man with an unattractive appearance who enthusiastically plays the balalaika, smokes and curses. After some time, he demands from Philip Philipovich that he register him, for which he needs a document, and he has already chosen his first and last name: Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov.
From his previous life as a dog, Sharikov still has a hatred of cats. One day, while chasing a cat that had run into the bathroom, Sharikov latches the lock in the bathroom, accidentally turns off the water tap, and floods the entire apartment with water. The professor is forced to cancel the appointment. The janitor Fyodor, called to fix the tap, embarrassedly asks Philip Philipovich to pay for the window broken by Sharikov: he tried to hug the cook from the seventh apartment, the owner began to chase him away. Sharikov responded by throwing stones at him.
Philip Philipovich, Bormental and Sharikov are having lunch; again and again Bormenthal unsuccessfully teaches Sharikov good manners. To Philip Philipovich’s question about what Sharikov is reading now, he answers: “The correspondence of Engels with Kautsky” - and adds that he does not agree with both, but in general “everything must be divided,” otherwise “one sat in seven rooms, and another is looking for food in trash bins.” The indignant professor announces to Sharikov that he is at the lowest level of development and nevertheless allows himself to give advice on a cosmic scale. The professor orders the harmful book to be thrown into the oven.
A week later, Sharikov presents the professor with a document, from which it follows that he, Sharikov, is a member of the housing association and is entitled to a room in the professor’s apartment. That same evening, in the professor’s office, Sharikov appropriates two chervonets and returns at night completely drunk, accompanied by two unknown men, who left only after calling the police, however, taking with them a malachite ashtray, a cane and Philip Philipovich’s beaver hat.
That same night, in his office, Professor Preobrazhensky talks with Bormenthal. Analyzing what is happening, the scientist comes to despair because he is from sweetest dog received such scum. And the whole horror is that he no longer has a dog’s heart, but a human heart, and the lousiest of all that exist in nature. He is sure that in front of them is Klim Chugunkin with all his thefts and convictions.
One day, upon arriving home, Sharikov presents Philip Philipovich with a certificate, from which it is clear that he, Sharikov, is the head of the department for cleaning the city of Moscow from stray animals (cats, etc.). A few days later, Sharikov brings home a young lady, with whom, according to him, he is going to marry and live in Preobrazhensky’s apartment. The professor tells the young lady about Sharikov’s past; she sobs, saying that he passed off the scar from the operation as a battle wound.
The next day, one of the professor’s high-ranking patients brings him a denunciation written against him by Sharikov, which mentions Engels being thrown into the oven and the professor’s “counter-revolutionary speeches.” Philip Philipovich invites Sharikov to pack his things and immediately get out of the apartment. In response to this, Sharikov shows the professor a shish with one hand, and with the other takes a revolver out of his pocket... A few minutes later, the pale Bormental cuts the bell wire, locks the front door and the back door and hides with the professor in the examination room.
Ten days later, an investigator appears in the apartment with a search warrant and the arrest of Professor Preobrazhensky and Doctor Bormental on charges of murdering the head of the cleaning department, Sharikov P.P. “What Sharikov? - asks the professor. “Oh, the dog I operated on!” And he introduces the visitors to a strange-looking dog: in some places bald, in others with patches of growing fur, he walks out on his hind legs, then stands on all fours, then again rises on his hind legs and sits in a chair. The investigator faints.
Two months pass. In the evenings, the dog sleeps peacefully on the carpet in the professor’s office, and life in the apartment goes on as usual.
, Vladimir Tolokonnikov, Boris Plotnikov And Roman Kartsev starring, film adaptation of the story of the same name Mikhail Bulgakov.
The plot of the film Heart of a Dog
Events of the film dog's heart"takes place in Moscow in the mid-1920s.
Brilliant neurosurgeon professor Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky(Evgeniy Evstigneev) has been researching the possibilities of human rejuvenation for many years, and has successfully applied the results of his experiments in practice.
One winter, the professor picked up a stray mongrel on the street in order to carry out a scientific experiment he had long planned to transplant the human pituitary gland and seminal glands into the dog in order to study their effect on the body.
On the same day that a dog named Ball, To Preobrazhensky guests arrived - new house manager Shvonder(Roman Kartsev) with his assistants. The purpose of their visit was to “densify” the professor by placing other residents in several rooms of his apartment. Nothing came of this venture, because Philip Philipovich turned for help to one of his patients - a high-ranking Soviet official. Leaving with nothing Shvonder harbored a grudge against the obstinate tenant for his failure.
After some time, the professor, with the help of his assistant, a young talented doctor Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental(Boris Plotnikov) performed the long-awaited operation, the results of which exceeded our wildest expectations. The dog began to turn into a person who gradually began to recognize himself as a new person. Unfortunately, this personality inherited the character traits and habits of the organ donor for transplantation - a rowdy and alcoholic Klima Chugunkina, killed in a pub by his drinking buddies.
Very soon the professor, seeing what kind of monster he had brought to life, turning the sweetest dog into a boor, a slacker and a drunkard Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov(Vladimir Tolokonnikov) - this is the name the former chose for himself Ball- bitterly regretted the experiment he carried out.
The history of the film Heart of a Dog
Movie dog's heart was first shown on Central Television of the Soviet Union on November 19, 1988.
The story on which the film was based was written Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov in 1925, but since the book was released in the Soviet Union due to its pronounced satirical orientation, was impossible; it had been distributed in samizdat since the 30s. The story was first published abroad in 1968, and in our country it was published only during perestroika.
Publication " Heart of a Dog"took place in the June issue of the magazine" Banner"for 1987, and already in November of the following year the premiere of the television version of the story took place.
Vladimir Bortko said that the director pushed him to the idea of adapting Bulgakov’s work Sergey Mikaelyan, then head of the television department" Lenfilm":
“Meeting me in the studio corridor that time, Mikaelyan handed out the magazine. I came home, started reading, got to the professor’s monologue and realized that I was going to film and I even knew how. It should be a black and white movie..."
For the right to play a professor Preobrazhensky such venerable actors as Leonid Bronevoy , Mikhail Ulyanov , Yuri Yakovlev , Vladislav Strzhelchik, but won Evgeniy Evstigneev. Although Evgeny Alexandrovich I didn't read the story before working on the painting" dog's heart", he was so natural in the role Philip Philipovich that this work became one of the best in his film career.
Son of an actor, famous cameraman, director and producer Denis Evstigneev recalled:
“This film appeared in my father’s life at the right time and literally saved him. Dad was going through a difficult period when Moscow Art Theater he was sent into retirement. It's hard to accept a job in " Heart of a Dog“, then he simply lived by it. I don’t know what happened on the set, but he constantly talked about his role, played something, showed some scenes... At that moment, the picture became a support for him.”
Of the eight candidates for the role Sharikova, among whom was Nikolay Karachentsov , Vladimir Bortko chose the actor of the Alma-Ata Russian Drama Theater Vladimir Tolokonnikov. At auditions Tolokonnikov played the dinner scene when Sharikov pronounces his later famous phrase: “I wish that’s all!” The actor made a toast and drank so convincingly that the director no longer had any doubts about his candidacy for the role. Poligraf Poligrafovich:
« Volodya killed me the moment I took a sip of vodka. He chuckled so convincingly, his Adam’s apple twitched so predatorily that I approved him without hesitation.”
For the role Shvondera together with Roman Kartsev famous comedian auditioned Semyon Farada .
To these and other wonderful actors who starred in both major and episodic roles - Nina Ruslanova , Boris Plotnikov, Olga Melikhova, Angelica Nevolina , Sergei Filippov , Valentina Kovel and others - managed to so vividly embody on the screen the images of the characters in the story that the film is still rightfully considered the best adaptation of Bulgakov's prose. The director's talent certainly contributed to this success. Vladimir Bortko, and high professionalism of the operator Yuri Shaigardanova, and the skill of the set designers, costume designers and make-up artists who worked on the film, and the musical numbers created by the composer Vladimir Dashkevich and poet Julius Kim.
Movie dog's heart in 1989 he was awarded the prize " Golden screen"at the International Film Festival in Warsaw (Poland) and the Grand Prix at International festivals television films in Dushanbe (USSR) and Perugia (Italy). In 1990, the director of the film Vladimir Bortko And Evgeniy Evstigneev, who played the role of the professor Preobrazhensky, became laureates State Prize of the RSFSR named after the Vasiliev brothers.
The filming took place in Leningrad, and the “role” of the streets of Moscow, where the action of the film takes place, was successfully “played” by the streets of the northern capital. Prechistenka, where the fateful incident took place Sharika his meeting with the professor became Borovaya Street, Obukhov Lane, where the house in which he lived is located Preobrazhensky, filmed on Mokhovaya, also filming took place on Preobrazhenskaya Square, on Ryleeva Street, in Degtyarny Lane and in other places in the city on the Neva.
Scenes in the cinematography were filmed in a cinema" Banner", while making the actors-spectators laugh in the frame, a comedy was shown on the screen Yuri Mamin "Neptune Festival".
Interesting facts about the film Heart of a Dog
First " dog's heart"was filmed by Italian and German filmmakers in 1976. In Italian the film is called" Cuore di cane" ("dog's heart"), the German version of the name is " Warum bellt Herr Bobikow?" – translated as " Why is Mr. Bobikov barking?" (surname " Sharikov"the Germans changed it to" Bobikov"). The picture was staged Alberto Lattuada(Alberto Lattuada), the role of the professor Preobrazhensky performed Max von Sydow(Max von Sydow).
- The film contains characters and scenes from other works of Bulgakov. Professor Persikov, which Preobrazhensky invited me to take a look Sharika- hero of the story " Fatal eggs
"and the circus soothsayer is a character in the story" Madmazel Jeanne"The story of a janitor who read two volumes of a dictionary Brockhaus And Efron- quote from the story " Gemstone life", an episode with the "stars" of twin sisters Clara And Roses taken from the feuilleton" Golden correspondence of Ferapont Ferapontovich Kaportsev", and the scene with the professor's neighbors engaged in table-turning is from the story" Seance".
- Vladimir Bortko starred in the film in the cameo role of an onlooker in Obukhov Lane, refuting rumors about Martians.
- Role Sharika performed by a mongrel named Karay, which was chosen from 20 applicants for the role. The dog for whom the film Bortko made his film debut, turned out to be a talented actor and subsequently starred in films " Resit", "Rock and roll for the princess", "Forever 19 years old" And " Wedding March".
Film crew of the film Heart of a Dog
Director of the film Heart of a Dog: Vladimir Bortko
Scriptwriters for the film Heart of a Dog: Natalia Bortko, Mikhail Bulgakov (story)
Cast: Vladimir Tolokonnikov, Evgeny Evstigneev, Boris Plotnikov, Roman Kartsev, Nina Ruslanova, Olga Melikhova, Alexey Mironov, Anzhelika Nevolina, Natalya Fomenko, Ivan Ganzha and others
Operator: Yuri Shaigardanov
Composer: Vladimir Dashkevich
Premiere date of the film Heart of a Dog: November 19, 1988
Channel of the premiere of the film Heart of a Dog: Central Television of the USSR
The story “Heart of a Dog”, subtitled “A Monstrous Story”; being in many ways the pinnacle of Soviet (or anti-Soviet) social satire, it was never published during the writer’s lifetime. Published for the first time in the USSR in 1987. 19 years earlier she had publications in London and Frankfurt.
The story was written in January-March 1925, the manuscript was accepted in the anthology “Nedra”, but was postponed from book to book, and, awaiting publication, Bulgakov even entered into an agreement with the Art Theater to stage “The Heart of a Dog”. However, the gradually changing literary and social situation, the intolerant aggressiveness of RAPP and its critics, the attacks on Bulgakov, which intensified after the premiere of “Days of the Turbins” in October 1926, closed the way for the story to be published. At the beginning of 1927, the Moscow Art Theater broke the contract with Bulgakov for the dramatization of the story. For many years, “Heart of a Dog” remained in the writer’s archive. March 7, 1925 the author read the first part of “The Heart of a Dog” at the literary meeting of the Nikitin Subbotniks, and on March 21, the second part of the story was read there. One of the listeners, M.Ya. Schneider, conveyed to the audience his impression of “Heart of a Dog” in the following way: “This is the first literary work that dares to be itself. The time has come to realize the attitude towards what happened” (i.e. to the October Revolution of 1917). One of the visitors to the premiere of the story said: “My personal opinion: such things, read in the most brilliant Moscow circle, are much more dangerous than the useless and harmful speeches of writers 101- first grade at the meetings of the All-Russian Union of Poets.
People experienced in literature praised the story. For example, April 8, 1925 writer Vikenty Veresaev wrote to the poet Maximilian Voloshin: “I was very pleased to read your review of M. Bulgakov...his humorous things are pearls, promising him to be an artist of the 1st rank. But censorship cuts it mercilessly. Recently I killed the wonderful piece “Heart of a Dog”, and he is completely losing heart.” Critics, including V. Shklovsky, who turned out to be a bad prophet for Bulgakov, at one time pointed out the writer’s dependence on the traditions of Wells’s fantasy with his “Food of the Gods.” With greater justification, perhaps, one could recall domestic experiments close to this genre - Al. Tolstoy in “Aelita” or E. Zamyatin in the novel “We”. But it is even more accurate to keep in mind Bulgakov’s dependence on the classical tradition, which he followed, of course, not as a pointing finger, but as a guiding star. First of all, we must name the darkly cheerful fiction of Gogol and the satire of Saltykov-Shchedrin.
Bulgakov read “Dead Souls” at the age of nine and for the rest of his life he could not free himself from the magic of the words of this great artist. It is no coincidence that in one of his stories from the 20s, the shadow of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov walks around NEP Moscow. As for Shchedrin, in a writer’s questionnaire dedicated to the memory of the author of “The History of a City,” Bulgakov stated: “Saltykov had an extraordinary influence on me, and, at a young age, I decided that I should treat my surroundings with irony... When I I became an adult and a terrible truth was revealed to me. Well done atamans, dissolute clementines, rukosui and bast workers, Major Pyshch and the white scoundrel Ugryum-Burcheev outlived Saltykov-Shchedrin.” Shchedrin's satirical method, but without his bile, like Gogol's fiction, but devoid of gloomy reflection, Bulgakov rethought in his own way in his realistic prose, in the original genre of satirical utopia.
Bulgakov's third story about Moscow. “The Heart of a Dog” was not published in the writer’s homeland until 1987, and in 1976 M.O. Chudakova, in materials for Bulgakov’s biography, could not even mention its name for censorship reasons, limiting herself to retelling the plot. Now this story, which was the last to reach the Russian-speaking writer, has become a reference book for an entire generation. Why did the story have such a difficult fate? It was written after "Fatal Eggs" in 1925. The editor of the almanac “Nedra” N.S. Angorsky hoped to publish the story, turning, in particular, for help to one of the prominent leaders of the party and government, L.B. Kamenev. However, the latter responded this way about “Heart of a Dog”: “This is a sharp pamphlet on modernity, under no circumstances should it be printed!” This review, together with the position of the censorship, made it impossible for the story to be published in the USSR for more than six decades. Readers almost lost the story forever when, during searches in Bulgakov’s apartment, the only copy of the manuscript was confiscated and the author was unable to obtain its return for several months. Only thanks to the requests of M. Gorky the story returned to Bulgakov.
The plot of “The Heart of a Dog” is borrowed to some extent from the same Wells from the novel “The Island of Doctor Moreau” and is associated with the idea of humanizing animals. Bulgakov was certainly influenced English writer, but only at the level of some generality of plots. The ideological content of Bulgakov's stories is completely independent and sometimes deeper than Wells's.
"Heart of a Dog" is one of the few literary works, who received such loud instant fame. The reason for this, of course, is its brilliant literary merits, but also the uniqueness of its appearance in print - 62 years after its creation.
Of course, they knew the story, just like “The Pit” and “Chevengur” by A. Platonov, as well as many other forbidden works of literature. And yet, the illegal existence of a book - and the example of “Heart of a Dog” proves this - cannot be even half-full. Only having received the rights of citizenship, having separated from the original stored in the archive, having set off on an independent voyage through time and readers, can a work be revealed as it deserves.
“Fatal Eggs” was Bulgakov’s first work, which caused a truly violent reaction from critics, and from Rappovskaya in particular. Now she already knew that she couldn’t take her eyes off this dangerous writer. And each new work of his was greeted by a friendly chorus of furious, denouncing voices seething with anger.
One can imagine the outcries that would have risen in RAPP if Bulgakov’s story, written shortly after “The Fatal Eggs,” “The Heart of a Dog,” had been published at the same time.
Bulgakov the satirist was disliked by the authorities: the satire was too sharp and accurate, and besides, Bulgakov did not hide his hostility towards the new “masters of life.” As a consequence, it is prohibited to be staged in the theater, published, or “breathed.” During his lifetime, he was reproached for the lack of a worldview, called “a new bourgeois brat, sprinkling poisoned but powerless saliva on the working class and its communist ideals.” The attacks on Bulgakov have not stopped to this day. In particular, his “The Master and Margarita” is accused of blasphemy: “dissolute infatuation with evil spirits” (A.I. Solzhenitsyn), “blasphemous novel” (N. Bokov).
When Bulgakov’s story “Fatal Eggs” was published in 1925, not the writer’s first satirical work, one of the critics, either with surprise or with irony, remarked: “Bulgakov wants to become a satirist of our era...”. Now, perhaps, no one will deny that Bulgakov became a satirist of our era. And even the most outstanding. And this despite the fact that he did not want to become one at all. The era itself made him a satirist. By the nature of his talent he was a lyricist. Everything he wrote went through his heart. Every image he created carries his love or hatred, admiration or bitterness, tenderness or regret. When you read Bulgakov's books, you inevitably become infected with these feelings of his. With satire, he only “snarled” at all the bad things that were born and multiplied before his eyes, from which he himself more than once had to fight off and which threatened serious troubles for the people and the country. He was disgusted by bureaucratic forms of managing people and the life of society as a whole, and bureaucracy was taking ever deeper roots in all spheres of social life. He could not stand violence either against himself or against other people. And since the times of war communism it has been used more and more widely. He saw the main misfortune of his “backward country” in lack of culture and ignorance, and both, with the destruction of the intelligentsia, despite the “cultural revolution”, and the elimination of illiteracy, did not decrease, but, on the contrary, penetrated into the state apparatus and into those layers societies which, by all accounts, should have constituted his intellectual milieu. And he rushed into battle to defend that “reasonable, good, eternal” that the best minds and souls of the Russian intelligentsia sowed in their time and that was now discarded and trampled underfoot in the name of the so-called class interests of the proletariat.
Bulgakov had his own creative interest in these battles. They kindled his imagination and sharpened his pen. And even the fact that criticism responded to the thin sword of his satire with a cudgel, the same Rappovian one that suppressed everything truly talented in literature, did not deprive him of either humor or courage. But he never entered into these out of pure passion, as often happened with satirists and humorists. He was invariably guided by anxiety and pain for that good and eternal thing that was lost by people and the country along the path along which they did not walk of their own free will.
That is why, in the tenth year of his work, in the conditions of flourishing Stalinism, his works were banned. But for the same reason, when six decades later it was returned to readers, it turned out that these works were not only not outdated, but turned out to be more topical than many, many modern readings, written on the most pressing topic of the day.
Bulgakov's creative world is fantastically rich, diverse, full of all kinds of surprises for both the reader and researchers. Not a single one of his novels, not a single one of his stories or plays fits into the patterns we are accustomed to. They are perceived and interpreted different people differently. Each attentive reader has his own Bulgakov.
The plots of two Moscow stories have something in common. “Heart of a Dog” also has its own element of fantasy. But what excites and worries the writer, he reveals here not in an allegorical form, but, as they say, in open text. Therefore, we can confidently say that “Heart of a Dog” is a work in the spirit of classical tragic realism.
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✪ The main phrase from the movie "Heart of a Dog"
Subtitles
Story
The story was written in January-March 1925. During the search carried out by the OGPU on Bulgakov on May 7, 1926 (warrant 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 Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library).
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 carelessly copied text of “The Heart of a Dog” was transferred to the West simultaneously to several publishing houses and in 1968 published in the magazine “Grani” (Frankfurt) and in Alec Flegon’s magazine “Student” "(London).
Plot
The story of the dog turning into a man quickly became known in medical circles, and then ended up in the tabloid press. Colleagues express their admiration for Professor Preobrazhensky, Sharik is shown in the medical lecture hall, and curious people begin to come to the professor’s house. But Preobrazhensky was not happy with the outcome of the operation; he understood that he could get out of Sharikov.
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 (represented by Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Dr. Bormental), and turned him against the professor.
Shvonder, being the chairman of the house committee, gave Sharik documents addressed to Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov, got him to work in the service for catching and exterminating stray animals (in “cleaning”) and forced the professor to register Sharikov in his apartment. Sharikov quickly made a career in the “cleaning”, becoming the boss. Under the influence of Shvonder, having read communist literature and feeling like a boss, Sharikov begins to be rude to the professor, behave cheekily at home, steal things with money and pester the servants. In the end, it came to the point that Sharikov wrote a false denunciation against the professor and Dr. Bormental. It was only thanks to the doctor’s influential patient that this denunciation did not reach law enforcement agencies. Then Preobrazhensky and Bormental ordered Sharikov to get out of the apartment, to which he refused and threatened the doctor with a revolver. Bormental pounced and disarmed Sharikov, after which he and the professor, unable to bear the antics of Poligraf Poligrafovich any longer and expecting only the situation to worsen, decided to do the opposite operation and transplanted a canine pituitary gland into Sharikov, and he gradually began to lose his human appearance and turned into a dog again.
Characters
Data
A number of Bulgakov scholars believe that “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 name), 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
An OGPU agent was present at the reading of the manuscript of the story during a meeting of writers on Gazetny Lane, who described the work as follows:
[…] such things, read in the most brilliant Moscow literary circle, are much more dangerous than the useless and harmless speeches of 101st grade writers at meetings of the “All-Russian Union of Poets.”
The first edition of “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 their scandalous love affairs.
Bulgakov hoped to publish “The Heart of a Dog” in the almanac “Nedra”, but they recommended that the story not even be given to Glavlit for reading. N. S. Angarsky, who liked the work, managed to transfer it to Lev Kamenev, but he stated that “this sharp pamphlet on modernity should under no circumstances be printed.” In 1926, during a search of Bulgakov’s apartment, the manuscripts of “The Heart of a Dog” were seized and returned to the author only after Maxim Gorky’s petition three years later.
The story was distributed in Samizdat already in the early 1930s.
The story, written in 1925, recreates contemporary to the writer reality - Soviet reality of the early 1920s. However, the picture reproduced in the smallest detail does not at all become a documentary portrait of the era. The combination of a fantastic assumption with many specific details, the interweaving of comic details of Sharik’s “humanization” with the tragic consequences of this experiment form a grotesque image of reality.
The theme of the story is man, as a social being, over whom a totalitarian society and the state are conducting a grandiose inhumane experiment, embodying with cold cruelty the brilliant ideas of their theoretic leaders. “New” literature and art serve this rebirth of personality.
The story “Heart of a Dog” is distinguished by an extremely clear author's idea. Briefly, it can be formulated as follows: the revolution that took place in Russia was not the result of natural socio-economic and spiritual development Therefore, it is necessary to return the country, if possible, to its former natural state.
This idea is realized by the writer in allegorical form through the transformation of a simple, good-natured dog into an insignificant and aggressive humanoid creature. At the same time, a whole series of persons are woven into the action, the collision of which reveals many problems of a general or private nature that were extremely interesting to the author. But they are most often read allegorically. Allegories are often polysemantic and can have many interpretations.
The story is based on a great experiment. Everything that was happening around and what was called the construction of socialism, was perceived by Bulgakov precisely as an experiment - huge in scale and more than dangerous. To attempts to create a new perfect society by revolutionary, i.e. methods that do not exclude violence, to educate new things using the same methods, free man he was extremely skeptical. For him, this was an interference in the natural course of things, the consequences of which could be disastrous, including for the “experimenters” themselves. The author warns readers about this with his work.
“Heart of a Dog” is Bulgakov’s last satirical story. She avoided the fate of her predecessors - she was not ridiculed and trampled upon by false critics of “Soviet literature”, because was published only in 1987.