Heart of a Dog episodes. Compositions

The story of M.A. Bulgakov " dog's heart"reflects the post-revolutionary era of the 20s - the time of the NEP. The realistic description of the Soviet reality of this time is combined in the story with the story of the grandiose fantastic experiment of Professor F.F. Preobrazhensky. As a result of an operation on a dog with a pituitary transplant of a human brain, the professor manages to get a new creature. There was a "humanization" of the dog - the dog turns into a man and reaches a certain level of development, albeit a very primitive one. He learned (with difficulty!) the rules of behavior in everyday life, learned to read, and learned certain social concepts. In many ways, he was influenced by the chairman of the house committee Shvonder, a man invested with power, albeit a small one. It must be said that Shvonder is hostile to Professor Preobrazhensky, considering him a counter-revolutionary. He does not understand that Filipp Filippovich is a hard worker, an old Russian intellectual, it is more important for him that the professor "lives alone in seven rooms", and this, in his opinion, is unacceptable. The new tenant who appeared in the professor's apartment, he begins to patronize and educate, helps to choose a name for him - Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov. The main thing that worries him is Sharikov's lack of documents and registration. For this reason, he comes to the professor.

The picture is very comical. Shvonder dictates to the professor how to write a certificate stating that Sharikov was "born" in his apartment. The professor feels confused, and Sharikov intervenes with stupid comments. Shvonder is completely on his side and feels some kind of gloating, seeing the professor's confusion. As a true bureaucrat, Schwonder is convinced that "a document is the most important thing in the world", so he is sincerely offended when the professor calls the documents "idiotic" in irritation. His main argument: “I cannot allow an undocumented tenant to stay in the house, and even not registered with the police. What if there is a war with imperialist predators?” And suddenly Sharikov presents his teacher with a “surprise”: he “gloomy barked” that he would not go to war anywhere. Shvonder was “taken aback”, he did not expect such “irconscience” from Sharikov, did not expect that he would so quickly get out of his influence, so he was embarrassed. Shvonder thinks mostly in vulgar sociological clichés: trying to figure out for himself what the reason is, he asks if Sharikov is not an "individualist anarchist." But he finds a more acceptable formal justification for himself - the state of his health: "I am entitled to a white ticket." Still not admitting his defeat, the surprised Shvonder dismisses the question, since this is not important yet, first you need to get documents from the police. He still does not understand what exactly Sharikov is preparing for him when he completely gets out from under his influence. But this is understood by Preobrazhensky and Dr. Bormental, who is present here, his assistant. They look at each other meaningfully, the professor looks at the doctor "angrily and sadly": "Would you like - morality." “Tormented by some thought,” he asks Shvonder if there is a free room in the house, which he agrees to buy. He is nervous, he shudders even from telephone calls, and the doctor understands this. But Shvonder maliciously replies that there is no room and is not expected, and leaves, "sparkling eyes." Shvonder short-sightedly considers himself a winner, while the professor has a premonition that the hardest thing is yet to come, and he is not mistaken in his premonitions.

In this episode M.A. Bulgakov shows how the man of the past, the old Russian intellectual, Professor Preobrazhensky, and the self-satisfied bureaucrat Shvonder, who has seized power and supports the primitive Sharikov, are opposed to each other. The example of this episode clearly and consistently shows the author's position, from which it is clear that Bulgakov's sympathies are on the side of the honored Russian scientist.

To the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution

The study of nature makes man in the end

as ruthless as nature itself.

G. Wells. Island of Dr. Moreau.

1. Dog heart

In 1988, director Vladimir Bortko, through Central Television, presented to the general Russian public his unconditional masterpiece - the television film "Heart of a Dog" (hereinafter - SS), based on the story of the same name by Mikhail Bulgakov (hereinafter - MB). A year earlier, in the 6th book of the "thick" magazine Znamya, it had already been published - for the first time in Russia - and did not go unnoticed. It is not known what the fate of the SS would have been in the reader's perception without the film, but the amazing tape completely overshadowed the book, imposing on it a single interpretation, unconditionally accepted by all sections of Russian society. Everyone was overjoyed. Still would! After 70 years of hegemony of the working class, it was indescribably pleasant to savor phrases like “I don’t like the proletariat”, “Devastation is not in the closets, but in the heads”, “It is impossible to sweep the tram tracks and arrange the fate of some foreign ragamuffins at the same time ”, etc. The film was made by the hands of a staunch communist who joined the ranks of the CPSU at the most mature age - 37 years old - and left the party in 1991 in the wake of the notorious perestroika. In 2007, however, Vladimir Vladimirovich again became a communist, this time joining the ranks of the Communist Party. So, something has changed in the worldview of the director, if for the second time he became an adherent of the same ideas that, not without the help of MB, so talentedly ridiculed in his tape. However, you can assume anything you want, and over time only the most narrow-minded people do not change. There is only one question. What would be the interpretation of the main images of the story, if Bortko happened to shoot the SS at the present time? It is impossible to say anything definite about this, but the film, I believe, would have turned out to be qualitatively different.

30 years have passed. Crawling out from under the rubble Soviet Union, Russia has come a long and difficult way in a certain direction. It began to comprehend what was previously taken solely on emotions. Emotions subsided - the mind earned. There were articles, publications, books with alternative opinions about the story. For example. “Those who ingenuously or selfishly consider Professor Preobrazhensky to be a purely positive hero, suffering from the scoundrel Sharikov, general rudeness and the disorder of the new life, it is worth recalling the words from Bulgakov’s later fantastic play Adam and Eve about clean old professors: “In fact, old people don't care about any idea, except for one thing - that the housekeeper serves coffee on time. ... I'm afraid of ideas! Each of them is good in itself, but only until the moment when the old professor equips it technically. (V. I. Sakharov. Mikhail Bulgakov: writer and power). Or: “On March 7 and 21, 1925, the author read the story in the crowded collection of Nikitinsky Subbotniks. There was no discussion at the first meeting, but then the brothers-writers expressed their opinion, it was preserved in the transcript (State Literary Museum).” Sakharov cites "their speeches in full", but I will limit myself to only one, belonging to the writer B. Nick. Zhavoronkov: “This is a very bright literary phenomenon. From a public point of view - who is the hero of the work - Sharikov or Preobrazhensky? Preobrazhensky is a brilliant tradesman. An intellectual [who] took part in the revolution, and then was afraid of his rebirth. Satire is aimed precisely at this kind of intellectuals.

And here's another. “The satire in Heart of a Dog is double-edged: it is directed not only against the proletarians, but also against those who, comforting themselves with thoughts of independence, are in symbiosis with their escheat power. This is a story about the mob and the elite, to which the author treats with equal hostility. But it is remarkable that both the public at Nikitin's subbotniks, and the readers of Soviet samizdat in Bulgakov's 1970s, and the creators, as well as the audience of the film Heart of a Dog in the 1990s, saw only one side. The same side, apparently, was also seen by the authorities - perhaps that is why the publishing fate of the “Heart of a Dog” was unfortunate” (A. N. Varlamov. Mikhail Bulgakov.) “Bulgakov’s story is structured in such a way that in the first chapters the professor swaggers, and not only over small Soviet bipods, but also over nature, the culmination of which is the operation to transplant the pituitary gland and seminal glands to a homeless dog, and starting from the fifth chapter, he receives for his courage in full from the "illegitimate son", in fact, that neither is legally settled in one of the very rooms that Philipp Philippovich cherishes so much” (ibid.).

Unexpectedly, a little-known in Russia film by the Italian director Alberto Lattuada, who was the first to film The Heart of a Dog (Cuore di cane) in 1976, surfaced. The picture turned out to be a joint, Italian-German, and in the German box office was called “Why is Mr. Bobikov barking?” (Warum bellt Herr Bobikow?). In this tape, Bobikov, who appears instead of Sharikov, is presented not as monstrous as in the Russian TV movie. The director treated him with obvious sympathy, showing him as somewhat stupid, ridiculous and strangely stupid. Little of. The local Bobikov develops some kind of connection, not fully shown to the end, with the “social servant” Zina, who treats him with pity and sympathy. The picture of the Italian about revolutionary Russia, from my point of view, turned out to be so-so, with one exception - the role of Professor Preobrazhensky brilliantly played by Max von Sydov. Syudov decides the role radically differently than the magnificent E.E. Evstigneev, nevertheless, the Swedish actor is no less convincing than the Russian. In general, in my opinion, V. Bortko examined the picture of his predecessor with an attentive eye before proceeding to his own version.

I named only two books, but there were other publications with various interpretations of the MB story. My own observations also accumulated, requiring a written embodiment. But only a video with convincing reflections on the work of the famous Russian military historian and archaeologist Klim Zhukov showed that further delay with the statement about the "Heart of a Dog", which has the subtitle "Monstrous Story", is similar to my lack of statement as such. And this is far from being the case, which the potential reader, I hope, will be convinced of in the very near future.

Therefore - let's get started.

2. Genius dog

Oo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ooh! Oh, look at me, I'm dying, - this is how the "talking dog" begins his speeches, leading, at the behest of the author, very meaningful internal monologues.

The poor dog is scalded with boiling water “The scoundrel in a dirty cap is the cook of the canteen of normal food for employees of the Central Council of the National Economy,” hence the above cry. “What a reptile, and also a proletarian,” the dog mentally exclaims, certifying himself later, that is, in the form of a human, as a “labor element”. The case begins in 1924, this will become clear from Chapter II, when one of Professor Preobrazhensky's patients, describing the clinical consequences of the operation performed by the doctor, declares:

25 years, I swear to God, professor, nothing like that. The last time was in 1899 in Paris on the Rue de la Paix.

What happened 25 years after the Rue de la Paix (Peace Street in Paris) will be recognized in the course of further presentation, that is, this patient, as a reasonable dog will say in due time, "we will explain."

From the diary of Dr. Bormenthal, who details all the stages of the surgical experiment of his teacher Professor Preobrazhensky, the reader learns that "a person obtained in a laboratory experiment by brain surgery" was born in December 1924. The day before the operation, December 22, the assistant writes: “Lab dog approximately two years old. Male. The breed is a mongrel. Nickname - Sharik. ... Nutrition before admission to the professor is poor, after a week's stay - extremely well-fed. Therefore, the beginning of our history falls on December 15, 1924, and its finale - on March 1925; this is stated in the final chapter of the story: “From the March fog, the dog suffered from headaches in the morning, which tormented him with a ring along the head seam.” In The Master and Margarita, almost everyone with whom the evil spirit comes into contact in one way or another will suffer from headaches. How pure will be the power of Professor Preobrazhensky - we'll see. 1924-25 - the height of the New Economic Policy (NEP) of the country of the Soviets, a temporary rollback of the socialist economy to capitalist positions. Perhaps that is why Professor Preobrazhensky, feeling his impunity, openly proclaims, as the cautious Bormenthal noted, "counter-revolutionary things."

The place of action of the SS is the capital of the USSR, and in Moscow there is a profitable Kalabukhov house, elite housing for rich Muscovites at that time, such as “bourgeois Sablin”, “sugar factory Polozov”, and, of course, “Professor Preobrazhensky”, who lives in 7 -and a room apartment, where Sharik, as a result of the most complex medical evolutions, first becomes Sharikov, then back to Sharik.

Рассуждения пса, за вычетом чисто собачьего скуляжа «У-у-у-у-у», выказывают особь, знакомую не только со многими аспектами человеческой жизни, но и способную делать на основе увиденного вполне разумные выводы.

Firstly, he knows a lot about general catering: “On Neglinny, in the Bar restaurant, they eat the usual dish - mushrooms, pican sauce for 3 rubles. 75 k serving. This is an amateur business - it’s the same as licking a galosh.

Secondly, he understands and feels the music: “And if it weren’t for some kind of grumbling that sings in the meadow under the moon -“ dear Aida ”- so that the heart falls, it would be great” (let's take “Aida” as a note: it will come in handy further). In passing, about the use of the word "grymza". The aria "Sweet Aida" in Verdi's opera is sung by the head of the palace guard Radamès, and women are usually called the old grimza. However, in explanatory dictionary Kuznetsov, it is said that they generally say so “about an old grumpy man” without indicating gender. However, the dog could have confused it, especially since “All the voices of all singers are equally vile” (V. Erofeev. Moscow - Petushki).

The dog, thirdly, sensibly talks about the relationships that arise between men and women: “Another typist receives four and a half gold coins in the IX category, well, really, her lover will give her phildepers stockings. Why, how much bullying she has to endure for this phildepers. After all, he does not subject her to French love in any ordinary way.

Fourthly, he is aware of the behind-the-scenes side of human existence: “Just think: 40 kopecks from two dishes, and both of these dishes are not worth five alt, because the supply manager stole the remaining 25 kopecks.”

Fifthly, he knows how to read - he learned from signboards, and this is not possible for every person, especially in a country that has not yet reached the level of universal literacy: “The blizzard clapped from a gun over his head, threw up huge letters of a linen poster “Is rejuvenation possible?”

Sixth, politically savvy. When he is locked in the bathroom before the operation, the dog sadly thinks: “No, where else, you won’t leave here for any will, why lie ... I am a master’s dog, an intelligent being, I have tasted a better life. And what is will? So, smoke, a mirage, a fiction ... The nonsense of these ill-fated democrats ... "

Seventh, eighth... I could say a lot more about this remarkable canine personality, but I think that's enough for now. After the operation on Sharik, the professor's assistant, the same doctor Bormenthal, will note in his diary: “Now, walking down the street, I look with secret horror at the dogs I meet. God knows what's in their brains." He is absolutely right: an alien soul is space.

“The door across the street in a brightly lit store slammed and a citizen appeared from it,” I continue to quote the stream of canine consciousness. - “It is a citizen, not a comrade, and even - most likely - a master. Closer - clearer - sir. The street dog inexplicably recognizes Professor Preobrazhensky, not only by name, but also by occupation. “This rotten corned beef will not be eaten, and if it is served to him somewhere, he will raise such a scandal, write in the newspapers: I, Philip Philippovich, have been fed.” And further: "And you had breakfast today, you, the value of world importance, thanks to the male gonads." Precisely so - "Philip Filippovich, you are a value of world significance" - in chapter VIII Dr. Bormental will call Preobrazhensky, persuading the professor to exterminate the unbridled Sharikov. Note: a dog and a man call Professor Preobrazhensky by his first name and patronymic.

MB's hint is unambiguous: thanks to his experiments, every dog ​​knows the Aesculapius, and, of course, the future Sharik-Sharikov is far from the first living creature to fall under the scalpel of the famous doctor, who is carrying out his experiments of "world significance". The dog does not know Bormental, calling him only “bitten”, that is, bitten by Sharik during the pogrom arranged by a frightened dog in the professor’s apartment, before the doctors undertook to treat his side scalded by the cook.

3. Benefactor

Fit-fit, - the gentleman whistled, entering the narrative, like a dog, from an interjection. Then he “broke off a piece of sausage called “special Krakow”,” threw it to the dog “and added in a stern voice:

Take it! Sharik, Sharik!

This is how the dog is named, although, strictly speaking, he calls him by this name a few minutes before the professor, “a young lady” in “cream stockings”, under whose skirt Sharik, thanks to the impulses of the “witch of a dry snowstorm”, noticed a “badly washed lace underwear” - from where they came from doggy rantings about Fildipers and French love. “Again Sharik. Baptized,” our dog thinks. “Yes, call it what you want. For such an exceptional act of yours." To lure a sausage that has not eaten for two days, a scalded and frozen cattle to the “master” is not difficult. “The side hurt unbearably, but Sharik sometimes forgot about him, absorbed in one thought - how not to lose the wonderful vision in a fur coat in the hustle and somehow express love and devotion to him.”

- I wish you good health, Philipp Philippovich, - he greets the doorman of the house in Obukhovsky Lane with canine devotion, thereby partially confirming Sharik's intuition for the reader (the gentleman's name and patronymic are named, there is no occupation yet) and inspiring the dog with reverent awe before his savior and a guide to the coming world of purity, satiety, warmth, comfort and ... a scalpel.

“What kind of person is this who can lead dogs from the street past the porters into the house of a housing association?” After all, according to Sharik, the doorman “is many times more dangerous than the janitor. Absolutely hateful breed. Crap cats. Liver in the lace. A “braided flayer” named Fyodor “intimately” informs Philipp Filippovich about the moving in of “housing comrades” “into the third apartment”, and when the “important dog benefactor” became indignant, he adds:

All apartments, Philipp Philippovich, will be moved in, except for yours.

Having informed the reader, in addition to this, one more noteworthy detail for us: “Heat from the pipes blew on the marble site,” the author begins to narrate about Sharik’s linguistic abilities, accompanying his story with a very sarcastic remark: “If you live in Moscow, and at least some someday you have brains in your head, you willy-nilly learn to read and write, moreover, without any courses. And in general: “Out of forty thousand Moscow dogs, unless some perfect idiot will not be able to put together the word “sausage” from letters.” In other words, if even dogs liquidate their own illiteracy on their own, then why the need for educational programs for people, by definition, the crowns of creation? The Bolsheviks, however, thought differently.

Quantity stray dogs clearly taken "from the ceiling." According to the 1926 census, slightly more than 2 million people lived in Moscow. So, according to the MB, there was one street dog for every 50 inhabitants. Too much, you know. On the other hand, Shakespeare's Hamlet exclaims:

Ophelia is mine!

If she had at least forty thousand brothers, -

My love is a hundred times more powerful!

If so, then the four-legged character of the story is a kind of thick-dog Hamlet among forty thousand literate Moscow dogs who are selflessly in love with Krakow sausage. And, like Hamlet, the dog will run into edged weapons in a dashing hour.

The letter "f" - "pot-bellied two-sided rubbish, it is not known what it means" - Sharik fails to identify, and he, not trusting himself, almost takes the word "professor" on the door plate of his benefactor for the word "proletarian", but he arrives in time into yourself. “He turned his nose up, once again sniffed Philip Philipovich’s fur coat, and thought confidently: “No, there is no smell of the proletarian here. A learned word, but God knows what it means.” Very soon he will know about it, but fresh knowledge will not bring him any dog ​​joy. Rather the opposite.

Zina, - commanded the gentleman, - to the examination room immediately and my dressing gown.

And then it began! The frightened dog arranges Sodom and Gomorrah combined in the professor’s apartment, but the superior forces of the enemy still overcome and euthanize the animal - for his own benefit, however: “When he resurrected, he was slightly dizzy and a little sick in his stomach, but as if there was no side, the side was sweetly silent.

From Seville to Grenada ... in the quiet twilight of the nights, - a distracted and false voice sang over him.

R-serenading, swords clattering! Why, you tramp, bit the doctor? BUT? Why did you break the glass? BUT?

And then the professor will sing these lines from A. K. Tolstoy’s “Don Giovanni Serenade” to the music of P. I. Tchaikovsky throughout the entire story, interspersing this motive with others: “To the banks of the sacred Nile,” from D. Verdi’s opera “Aida ”, partly known, as the author showed, and to the dog. And no one - and Philipp Philippovich will extract these sounds from himself in the same "scattered and false voice" even in front of outsiders - this will not annoy anyone. But when Sharik, who has become “Monsieur Sharikov”, begins to masterfully play the folk song “The Moon Shines” on the balalaika - to the point that the professor involuntarily begins to sing along, then Mr. inexpressibly, even to the point of a headache.

How did you manage, Philipp Philippovich, to lure such nervous dog? asked a pleasant male voice.

Bormenthal's question gives the professor a reason to break out into a short speech in which the moral aspect, seasoned with the edification characteristic of an elderly person and a teacher, is easily combined with attacks on the power of the Communist Bolsheviks that existed in those years.

Weasel-s. The only way that is possible in dealing with a living being. Terror cannot do anything with an animal, at whatever stage of development it may be. ... They think in vain that terror will help them. No-sir, no-sir, it won't help, no matter what it is: white, red and even brown! Terror completely paralyzes the nervous system.

An amazing thing: under the professor’s definition - an animal, “at whatever stage of development it may be”, a person also falls, since it is people who are usually subjected to terror, while terror in relation to animals is called a little differently: say, the extermination or destruction of a population. Looking ahead, I’ll note: maybe that’s why, at the end of the story, killing “comrade Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov ... who is the head of the subdepartment for cleaning the city of Moscow from stray animals”, the refined intellectuals Preobrazhensky and Bormental do not remorse too much, because for them he is no more than an animal, in the words of the professor, "an unexpected creature, a laboratory one." Or, as Bormental says, intending to "feed" Sharikov "arsenic":

After all, it is your own experimental being.

Own - well said! “A person obtained in a laboratory experiment by brain surgery” is the property of a professor, so the doctor has the right to do whatever he wants with him, up to and including murder? Apparently so. For Preobrazhensky, the death of a "laboratory creature" is a common thing. He says before the experiment on Sharik:

We won't do anything today. Firstly, the rabbit is dead, and secondly, today in the Bolshoi - "Aida". And I haven't heard in a long time. I love...

“The rabbit is dead” - you can’t celebrate a commemoration for him, - and the professor, as a person of high culture, loves to have a cultural rest.

On the other hand, it is possible that Preobrazhensky's professional skills and ideas somewhat dominate his mind, so that he tends to involuntarily transfer them to the sphere of social communication. Let us remember, however, the passage about affection and see in the course of the presentation how the practice of the professor's relations with people is combined with his theoretically "affectionate" calculations.

MB speaks through Preobrazhensky about "white, red and even brown" terror. The author observed the first two directly in the era of revolutions and civil war, and obviously knows about brown from the press, because the assault detachments (German: Sturmabteilung) of the Brownshirts, Nazi paramilitary units, were created in Germany back in 1921.

When the dog, seizing the moment, nevertheless “explains” the owl, plus tears the professor's galoshes and breaks the portrait of Dr. Mechnikov, Zina suggests:

He, Philipp Philippovich, needs to be torn off with a whip at least once, - the professor got excited, saying:

You can't fight anyone ... remember this once and for all. Man and animal can only be acted upon by suggestion.

And with a scalpel, we add, again looking ahead.

There is another author's hint, anticipating the transition of the dog from the world of animals to the world of people. At the reception at Preobrazhensky's, looking at the guy on whose head "completely green hair grew," Sharik mentally marvels: "Lord Jesus... such a fruit!" And during the flood, a little later arranged by Sharikov in the professor’s apartment, an old woman “leaks” through the kitchen, which:

The talking dog is interesting to look at.

“The old woman wiped her sunken mouth with her index finger and thumb, swollen and prickly eyes looked around the kitchen and said with curiosity:

Oh Lord Jesus!"

None of the characters in the story remembers the Savior more, except for those who have not yet been subjected to a devastating, according to the author, attack by highly educated experimenters - no matter if ideological or research.

4. Patients of Preobrazhensky

Fit, fit. Well, nothing, nothing, - Preobrazhensky reassured the treated dog. - Let's go take it.

Let's go, we say after the professor, not yet understanding who or what to accept and why. The replica of the “bitten” - “Former” - does not clarify the matter, and the reader, together with the dog, is ready to think: “No, this is not a hospital, I ended up somewhere else.” The dog is mistaken, the reader is also mistaken. It turned out to be just a hospital, but with strange patients. Take at least the first, that is, the "former". "At the board" of his "splendid jacket, a jewel stuck out like an eye." When, at the doctor's demand to undress, he "took off his striped trousers," "underneath them were never-before-seen underpants. They were cream colored with silk black cats embroidered on them and smelled of perfume." In response to the inevitable professorial "A lot of blood, a lot of songs ..." - and blood has already been shed and will be shed in abundance - from the same "Don Juan serenade", the cultural subject sings along:

- "I'm the one that is prettiest of all! .." - "with a voice rattling like a frying pan." And in the fact that "from the pocket of his trousers, the one who entered drops a small envelope on the carpet, on which a beautiful woman with her hair was depicted," even Mr. Professor does not find anything terrible, urging only the patient not to abuse - those, probably, actions that he just and produced 25 years ago in the area of ​​the Parisian street Mira. However, "the subject jumped up, bent down, picked up" the beauty "and blushed deeply." Still not blush! At his obviously respectable age, other people think about the soul, and do not indulge in youthful vices with the help of pornographic postcards, which he, without blushing, admits to his no less respectable doctor:

Would you believe it, professor, naked girls in packs every night.

Then he "counted out to Filipp Filippovich a pack of white money" (white money - Soviet chervonets) and, gently shaking "both of his hands", "giggled sweetly and disappeared."

Next comes an agitated lady "in a hat famously folded to one side and with a sparkling necklace on a flaccid and chewed neck", and "strange black bags hung under her eyes, and her cheeks were of a doll-ruddy color."

(At the time of writing the story, MB was 34 years old. At this age, it is absolutely impossible to imagine yourself as an old man. But you can sarcastically remark about an elderly woman that she has a “sluggish and chewed neck.” I. Ilf was 30 years old, E. Petrov - 25, when they bitingly wrote in "The Twelve Chairs" about Kisa Vorobyaninov's aged mistress Elena Bour that she "yawned, showing the mouth of a fifty-year-old woman. " D. Kedrin went even further, writing in 1933:

And here they are - the eternal song of complaints,

Drowsiness, but the yolk rubbed into wrinkles,

Yes, obliquely, like a wolf hanging on the forehead,

Stingy, dirty, gray curl.

And it's about your own mother! The poet was then 26 years old.)

The lady is trying to mislead the doctor about her age, but the professor is sternly taken to fresh water. The unfortunate woman tells the doctor the reason for her sorrows. It turns out that she is madly in love with a certain Moritz, meanwhile “he is a card cheat, all of Moscow knows this. He can't miss a single vile milliner. He's so damn young." And when, again, at the request of the professor, who does not even stand on ceremony with the ladies, she begins to “take off her pants,” the dog “completely became clouded and everything in his head went upside down. “Well, to hell with you,” he thought dully, laying his head on his paws and dozing off from shame, “and I won’t try to understand what this thing is - I still don’t understand.” The reader also does not quite understand, but vaguely begins to guess something when the professor declares:

I am inserting the ovaries of a monkey for you, madam.

The astonished madam agrees to the monkey, agrees with the professor about the operation, and at her request and for 50 chervonets, the professor will operate personally, and, finally, “the hat with feathers wavered” again - but in the opposite direction.

And in the direct - the "bald as a plate, head" of the next patient invades and hugs Philip Philipovich. This is where something extraordinary begins. Apparently, a certain “excited voice” persuades the professor to do nothing less than how to have an abortion on a 14-year-old girl. And he is trying to somehow conscience the petitioner, apparently, out of embarrassment, addressing him in the plural:

Lord... you can't do that. You need to restrain yourself.

Found someone to educate! And to the objection of the visitor:

You understand, publicity will ruin me. The other day I have to get a business trip abroad - the doctor naturally "turns on the fool":

Why, I'm not a lawyer, my dear... Well, wait two years and marry her.

Well, after all, they did not come to him as a lawyer.

I'm married, professor.

Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen!

It is not known for certain whether Preobrazhensky agrees to the infamy offered to him, but, based on the context of the SS, we can say with a high degree of certainty: yes, he agrees. A high-ranking pedophile comes to the professor not by chance, but most likely on a tip from knowledgeable gentlemen; the doctor is a brilliant professional and, besides, a private person, therefore, everything will be done excellently and under cover; and the precedent smells by no means of the miserable 50 chervonets of the previous lady, but much more large sum- It's an illegal business.

The reception continues: “The doors opened, faces changed, instruments rattled in the closet, and Philipp Philippovich worked tirelessly.” And as a result: "" Obscene apartment "- thought the dog." If, looking at the end of the story, one reflects on how he himself was treated, then we can say: his premonitions do not deceive him.

5. Uninvited guests

In the evening of the same day, a completely different audience will visit the professor. “There were four of them at once. All the young people and all are dressed very modestly.” Philip Philipovich “stood at the desk and looked at those who entered, like a commander at enemies. The nostrils of his hawk nose flared." He communicates with new visitors in a qualitatively different way than with his patients.

Interrupts without letting people say a word.

We are here for you, professor... that's what business... - the man who later turned out to be Shvonder spoke up.

You, gentlemen, go in vain without galoshes in such weather ... firstly, you will catch a cold, and, secondly, you left a legacy on my carpets, and all my carpets are Persian, - the most well-mannered gentleman admonishes those who do not have only Persian carpets, but even galoshes.

Humiliates the entered "blonde in a hat."

“I beg you, dear sir, to take off your headdress,” Philipp Philippovich said impressively.

In response to Shvonder's attempt to state the essence of the matter, he completely ignores the speaker:

God, the Kalabukhov house is gone... what will happen to the steam heating now?

Are you kidding me, Professor Preobrazhensky?

Without a doubt - mocks, mocks, swaggers.

Demands to explain to him the purpose of the visit:

On what business did you come to me? Speak as soon as possible, I'm going to have dinner now - and he only delays the conversation.

Finally, it evokes a response, since Shvonder already utters the following remark “with hatred”:

We, the management of the house... came to you after a general meeting of the tenants of our house, at which the issue of compacting the apartments of the house was raised...

Here the most intelligent professor points out to the “newcomers” the illiterate construction of the phrase.

Who stood on whom? shouted Philipp Philippovich, “take the trouble to express your thoughts more clearly.

The question was about compaction.

Enough! I understand! Do you know that by the decree of August 12, my apartment is freed from any seals and resettlements?

Shvonder is aware, but tries to reason with Preobrazhensky:

The general meeting asks you voluntarily, in order to work discipline, to give up the dining room. ... And from the lookout as well.

The enraged doctor calls his high-ranking Soviet patron Pyotr Aleksandrovich and informs him of the current situation as follows:

Now four people came to me, one of them was a woman dressed as a man, and two armed with revolvers and terrorized me in the apartment in order to take away part of it.

The co-worker, judging by the conversation, does not believe the Aesculapius very much, who at one time received an iron "protection letter", to which he breaks out with the following passage:

I'm sorry... I don't have the opportunity to repeat everything they said. I'm not a bullshit hunter.

If the entrants have weapons (the author does not say anything about them), then they do not threaten the professor with revolvers, unless the “excited Shvonder” promises to “file a complaint with higher authorities.” No one terrorizes Preobrazhensky and is not going to take away part of the apartment. He is only offered - of his own free will - to give up a couple of rooms. In other words, nothing special happens. The doctor could well fight off the visitors on his own, but he prefers to add fuel to the fire. At the same time, the professor begins and ends his “appeal” with something like outright blackmail:

Petr Aleksandrovich, your operation is cancelled. ... As well as all other operations. That's why: I'm stopping my work in Moscow and in Russia in general... They... have made it necessary for me to operate on you where I've hitherto slaughtered rabbits. In such conditions, I not only cannot, but also have no right to work. Therefore, I stop my activities, close my apartment and leave for Sochi. I can give the keys to Shvonder. Let him operate.

Even the battered chairman of the house committee does not expect such a trick:

Excuse me, professor... you twisted our words.

I ask you not to use such expressions, - Preobrazhensky cuts him off and hands over the phone with Pyotr Aleksandrovich on the wire.

Shvonder receives a strong smack from the high-ranking authorities and, burning with shame, says:

It's kind of a shame!

“How spat! Well, boy!” - admires the dog.

Trying to save at least some face, “a woman disguised as a man”, “as the head of the cult department at home ...” (- Head, - the most educated Philipp Philippovich immediately corrects her) suggests that he “take a few magazines in favor of children Germany. A fifty-fifty piece. The professor does not take. He sympathizes with the children of Germany (this is not true), he does not feel sorry for the money (this is true), but ...

Why are you refusing?

I do not want.

Do you know, professor, - the girl spoke, sighing heavily, - ... you should have been arrested.

For what? asked Philip Philipovich with curiosity.

You hater of the proletariat! the woman said proudly.

Yes, I do not like the proletariat,” Philipp Philippovich agreed sadly.

The humiliated and offended four retire in mournful silence, filled with reverent delight, “The dog stood on hind legs and made some kind of prayer in front of Filipp Filippovich, ”after which the“ hater of the proletariat ”in a good mood goes to dinner. And in vain does he so easily and condescendingly insult and humiliate the “charming”, in his words, “house committee”. Some time later, this comes back to haunt him, for example, in a conversation with the same Shvonder.

Is that, uh... do you have a spare room in your house? I agree to buy it.

Yellow sparks appeared in brown eyes Shvonder.

No, professor, unfortunately. And it's not expected.

So here it is. You should not turn against yourself people who can give you trouble, despite all your "protective letters". After all, if the professor had not behaved so arrogantly and impudently with Shvonder, perhaps he would not have subsequently begun to write denunciations against Preobrazhensky himself, and to help Sharikov in this vile deed.

What the proletariat was guilty of before the professor, we will talk later, but for now we should dwell on the notorious compaction. No matter how trite it sounds, but the proletarian revolution in Russia was not done in the interests of the “other world class” (N. Erdman. Suicide). At least at first, the new government helped the oppressed, stimulating the exodus of workers from the huts to the "palaces". For the most part, the workers lived in barracks, not much different from the barracks of the coming Gulag, huddled in basements and semi-basements, rented corners, etc. There was, of course, a working elite, highly skilled workers who earned no worse than engineers. There were original breeders like A. I. Putilov, who shook hands with hard workers, organized schools, hospitals, shops with cheap goods for them, but on the whole, the working class lived like bestiality and joyfully began to condense the “bourgeois”. Nothing good for the gentlemen living in luxurious multi-room apartments, the seal did not bode well. The peaceful coexistence of an educated and refined class with a rude, foul-mouthed, drinking, ignorant black people, warmed up by slogans like “Rob the loot!” Was practically excluded. According to Wikipedia, “The movement of workers into the apartments of the intelligentsia inevitably led to conflicts. So, the housing subdivisions were inundated with complaints from residents that the “settlers” broke furniture, doors, partitions, oak parquet floors, burning them in stoves. The opinion of the minority, however, was hardly taken into account, since relocation to normal housing corresponded to the interests of the majority, and somehow it was necessary to heat the premises in the absence of steam heating.

Concerning compaction, laws were issued and decrees were made, to which I refer lovers of long-ago published primary sources. I will cite only one very characteristic and, in my opinion, not entirely intelligible quotation from V. I. Lenin's pamphlet "Will the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?" of the year (V. I. Lenin. PSS. T. 34): “The proletarian state must forcibly move a family in dire need into the apartment of a rich man. Our detachment of workers' militia consists, say, of 15 people: two sailors, two soldiers, two class-conscious workers (of which only one is a member of our Party or sympathizes with it), then 1 intellectual and 8 people from the working poor, certainly not less than 5 women, servants, laborers, etc. The detachment comes to the apartment of the rich, inspects it, finds 5 rooms for two men and two women. Just a few days after the publication, the leader's theory became a practice and not at all as benevolent and cloudless as he imagined, giving rise to a lot of abuses and crimes. However, he did not care, because "the revolution is not made in white gloves."

So in large Russian cities, primarily in Moscow and Petrograd, there are communal apartments. Those same communal apartments, where there is only one restroom for “38 rooms” (V. Vysotsky. Ballad of childhood) and which are usually cursed as an unconditional evil, at one time were a real boon for tens of thousands of workers and working families. The “bourgeois element” at that time had no time for fat, to be alive. Perhaps by December 1925, which is discussed in the story, there was already practically no one to compact, because, as Sharikov will say later, “gentlemen are all in Paris”: native French and Russians who have come in large numbers not of their own free will. Nevertheless, let's take the author's word for it and see what is there and how it is at Professor Preobrazhensky's dinner.

6. Culinary controversy

And at dinner Philipp Filippovich has a polemic between the MB and ... A.P. Chekhov (hereinafter referred to as AC). The professor's speeches are a direct answer to the secretary of the congress, Ivan Guryich Zhilin from Chekhov's Sirena. And not just an answer, but a sharp, tough and, I would even say, angry objection. Preobrazhensky as a character polemicizes with Zhilin, MB as a writer and citizen - with AC.

Zhilin says:

Well, sir, and to eat, my soul Grigory Savvich, you also need to skillfully. You need to know what to eat.

Preobrazhensky echoes him, moving from a private thesis about proper snacking to a general one - about proper nutrition:

Food, Ivan Arnoldovich, is a tricky thing. You need to be able to eat, and, imagine, most people do not know how to do this at all. You need to not only know what to eat, but also when and how.

Bulgakov's hero, please note, following Chekhov's in a conversation about food, he refers to a character called by his first name and patronymic. Only Preobrazhensky talks during dinner, and Zhilin - before.

The best snack, if you want to know, is herring, says Zhilin. - You ate a piece of it with onions and mustard sauce, now, my benefactor, while you still feel sparks in your stomach, eat caviar by itself or, if you wish, with lemon, then a simple radish with salt, then herring again, but all better, benefactor, salted mushrooms, if they are cut finely, like caviar, and, you understand, with onions, with Provencal oil ... deliciousness!

Zhilin is objected to by Preobrazhensky, who forced Bormental to bite a glass of vodka with something similar “to a small dark bread”:

Note, Ivan Arnoldovich: cold appetizers and soup are eaten only by landlords who have not been cut down by the Bolsheviks. A little self-respecting person operates with hot snacks. And of the hot Moscow snacks - this is the first. Once upon a time they were perfectly cooked in the Slavic Bazaar.

Herring, caviar, radish, salted mushrooms ... The secretary of the congress just "operates" with cold snacks and after a while receives an unequivocal thrashing from the professor of medicine. Why Preobrazhensky, himself also one of the undercut ones, so dismissively, using "revolutionary" vocabulary, speaks of fellow classmates, is incomprehensible. Maybe the MB is thus blaming the ACh, who put his life on the description of various kinds of Russian "degenerates", for how weak, insignificant, incapable of resistance they turned out to be in a difficult time? Or maybe the fact that it was the "undercut" that nurtured the future Sharikovs? Or overlooked their appearance?

When you enter the house, - Zhilin relishes, - the table should already be set, and when you sit down, now put your napkin behind your tie and slowly reach for a decanter of vodka. Yes, mommy, you don’t pour it into a glass, but into some antediluvian grandfather’s glass of silver or into a sort of pot-bellied one with the inscription “the monks accept it,” and you don’t drink it right away, but first you sigh, rub your hands, look indifferently at the ceiling , then slowly, bring it, some vodka, to your lips and - immediately you have sparks from your stomach all over your body ...

Preobrazhensky drinks vodka differently than Zhilin, without any digestive moments of anticipation and delaying pleasure, namely: "Philip Philippovich ... threw the contents of the glass down his throat with one lump." Preobrazhensky “throws out” precisely from a glass, and not from a glass with the inscription “he is also accepted by the monks,” as Zhilin advises, rebelling against glasses. Other times - other dishes. Not to the "grandfather's antediluvian silver", perhaps already requisitioned or sold for a piece of bread. However, the professor of medicine, who has a serious patron in the Soviet authorities, picks up his “world snack” on a “clawed silver fork”, therefore, the requisition of the “undercut” is not yet threatened.

By the way, the secretary at the AC also mentions hot snacks: burbot liver (perhaps it was served cold), stuffed porcini mushrooms (this is the same as stewed ones, only stuffed) and kulebyaka.

Well, sir, before the kulebyaka, have a drink,” the secretary continued in an undertone ... “The kulebyaka must be appetizing, shameless, in all its nakedness, so that there is temptation. You wink at her with your eye, cut off a kind of bite and move your fingers over her like this, from an excess of feelings. You start eating it, and from it oil, like tears, the filling is fatty, juicy, with eggs, offal, with onions ...

The MB says nothing about the second glass, but after all, a Russian person at dinner could not get by with just one. Could not. It must be assumed that Preobrazhensky did not get along with Bormental either. "Secondary" they ate ... soup, contrary to the professor's incantations: "At the same time, steam smelling of crayfish rose from the plates." By the way, and the remark about Bormental, who turned pink “from soup and wine”, “bitten” by Sharik the day before.

The soup remained outside the writing competence of the MB, while at the AF the secretary spills about soups “like a singing nightingale”, hearing “nothing but his own voice”:

The cabbage soup should be hot, fiery. But best of all, my benefactor, beetroot borscht in the Khokhlatsky style, with ham and sausages. Sour cream and fresh parsley with dill are served with it. Pickle from offal and young kidneys is also excellent, and if you like soup, then the best of soups, which is covered with roots and herbs: carrots, asparagus, cauliflower and all that kind of jurisprudence.

Zhilin and Preobrazhensky agree on one more issue. The secretary of the convention advises:

If, let's say, you are going home from hunting and want to dine with appetite, then you never need to think about smart; smart and learned always knocks off the appetite. If you please know yourself, philosophers and scientists about food are the latest people and worse than them, sorry, they don’t even eat pigs

If you care about your digestion, here's a good piece of advice - don't talk about Bolshevism and medicine at dinner.

Bolshevism and medicine are just included in the category of "smart and scientists" topics that completely "knock off the appetite."

Regarding newspapers, however, our heroes express purely opposite opinions.

So lie down on your back, tummy up, and take the newspaper in your hands. When eyes stick together and there is drowsiness in the whole body, it’s nice to read about politics: there, you see, Austria blundered, there France didn’t please anyone, there the Pope went against it - you read, it’s nice.

Preobrazhensky:

And, God save you, do not read Soviet newspapers before dinner. ... I made thirty observations in my clinic. And what do you think? Patients who do not read newspapers felt great. Those whom I specifically forced to read Pravda lost weight. ... Not enough of this. Decreased knee jerks, poor appetite, depressed state of mind.

Afternoon leisure for both ACH and MB is cigar. At the first - under the casserole:

Homemade homemade casserole is better than any champagne. After the very first glass, your whole soul is seized by the sense of smell, a kind of mirage, and it seems to you that you are not in an armchair at home, but somewhere in Australia, on some softest ostrich ...

The second - under Saint-Julien - has “decent wine”, which “now is gone”, or under something else that is not mentioned (the professor does not like liqueurs).

After dinner, the Chekhov hero is drowsy, like Sharikov: “A strange feeling,” he (Sharikov - Yu. L.) thought, closing his heavy eyelids, “my eyes would not look at any food.” Before that, "The dog got a pale and thick piece of sturgeon, which he did not like, and immediately after this a chunk of bloody roast beef." Preobrazhensky and Bormental, presumably, use the same thing, which means that the list and order of dishes at the MB practically coincide with those of Chekhov, only at the AP the fish and meat changes are painted with lively, juicy, appetizing, gastronomically verified colors:

As soon as they ate borscht or soup, immediately order them to serve fish, benefactor. Of the dumb fish, the best is fried crucian carp in sour cream; only, so that he does not smell of mud and has subtlety, you need to keep him alive in milk for a whole day. ... Also pike perch or carp with tomato and mushroom gravy is good. But you can't get enough of the fish, Stepan Francych; this food is insignificant, the main thing in dinner is not fish, not sauces, but roast.

After dinner, Zhilin, just like Manilov, thinks about all sorts of rubbish:

As if you were a generalissimo or married to the most beautiful woman in the world, and as if this beauty swims all day in front of your windows in a kind of pool with goldfish. She swims, and you tell her: “Darling, go kiss me!”

Preobrazhensky - talks at length about the world revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat (more on that later).

ACH, through the mouth of Zhilin, is skeptical about doctors and has every right to do so, because the doctor himself:

Qatar stomach doctors invented! More from free-thinking and from pride is this disease. You don't pay attention. Suppose you don’t feel like eating or feel sick, but you don’t pay attention and eat for yourself. If, let's say, they serve a couple of great snipes to the hot dish, and if you add to this a partridge or a couple of fat quails, then you will forget about any catarrh, honestly a noble word.

MB, also a doctor, makes doctors the arbiters of human destiny, endows them with the properties and qualities of a demiurge and prophets.

7. The well-fed does not understand the hungry

“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,” - this is how at the very beginning of the story the dog, nameless at that time, certifies the gentleman approaching him. The dog's intuition is confirmed in this case as well. The professor's table is rich, refined, by the way, not without cold appetizers. “On plates painted with heavenly flowers with a black wide border lay sliced ​​salmon and pickled eels in thin slices. On a heavy board is a piece of cheese with a tear, and in a silver tub covered with snow is caviar. Between the plates there are several thin glasses and three crystal decanters with multi-colored vodkas. And then there was “Zina brought in a covered silver dish in which something was grumbling. The smell from the dish was such that the dog's mouth immediately filled with liquid saliva. "Gardens of Babylon!" - he thought, and tapped on the parquet with his tail, like a stick.

Here they are, - Philipp Philippovich commanded predatorily ... - Doctor Bormental, I beg you, immediately this little thing, and if you say what it is ... I am your blood enemy for life.

“With these words, he himself picked up something resembling a small dark bread on a silver fork,” on which we will now dwell. The MB does not explain what exactly the healers ate, skipping the first one. The writer's contemporaries, I believe, understood him perfectly, but what should we do? And we can only look into V. Gilyarovsky’s book “Moscow and Muscovites” and look for the chapter “Taverns” there: “Instantly, cold smirnovka in ice, English bitter, Shustovskaya ryabinovka and Leve No. 50 port wine next to a bottle of picon lined up on the table. Two more hams carried two loose hams, sliced ​​​​transparently pink, paper thickness, slices. Another tray, on it is a pumpkin with cucumbers, fried brains smoked on black bread(my bold type is Yu. L.) and two silver jugs with gray granular and shiny black Achuev pressed caviar. Kuzma grew silently with a dish of salmon garnished with lemon squares. We note some culinary similarities between the tavern table at Gilyarovsky and the home table at MB, and let's move on. Since we have nothing else, it turns out that the best snack for forty degrees is hot fried brains with black bread. That is, the professor not only, speaking in a modern way and, as usual, looking ahead, takes out the brain with his ornate surroundings, not only torments “human brains” with a scalpel, but also gobbles them up with appetite - in their veal, of course, or some or some other implementation. If I am right, and we are really talking about fried brains, then perhaps MB deliberately did not begin to talk about Preobrazhensky's culinary and snack preferences, so that readers would independently come to the conclusion I formulated.

If you take care of your digestion, - the doctor orates, sipping a crayfish soup, - my good advice is - do not talk about Bolshevism and medicine at dinner, - while he himself talks incessantly about the Bolsheviks, the Bolshevik authorities and everything medical.

The professor’s afternoon discussions over a cigar and “Saint-Julien is decent wine ... but now it’s gone” will have to be commented almost word for word, but there’s nothing to be done, because his “fiery words” not only reveal Preobrazhensky’s attitude to the surrounding reality, but also reveal it inner world. Filippiki Philipp Philippovich begins after "Deaf, softened by ceilings and carpets, the chorale came from somewhere above and from the side." Having learned from his servant Zina that the housing comrades "have again done a general meeting," the professor begins to scream.

He generally constantly screams (and curses) throughout the story, even in situations that do not require a scream. No one in the SS screams (or curses) anymore. The meticulous reader can verify this for himself. This time Preobrazhensky exclaims:

The Kalabukhovsky house disappeared. ... At first, singing every evening, then the pipes will freeze in the toilets, then the boiler in the steam heating will burst, and so on.

The doctor's biggest concern is heating. In fact, who wants to freeze in their own 7-room apartment. A little further down he says:

I'm not talking about steam heating. I do not speak. Let: once the social revolution - no need to drown.

So let's be clear about this question. At the very beginning of my notes, when the professor brings the dog into the house, I drew the readers' attention to the phrase "Heat from the pipes blew on the marble platform." So, then everything was in order with steam heating. After the professor's ranting about devastation, which we will talk about later, the author remarks, not without irony: “It seems that devastation is not so terrible. Despite her, twice a day the gray harmonicas under the window sill filled with heat, and the warmth dispersed in waves throughout the apartment. This remark completely refutes what Preobrazhensky said. Good. Suppose he speaks on the basis of someone else's experience. He has a telephone, he meets and communicates with colleagues, and they could terrify him about their cold, unheated dwellings. However, on the eve of the operation on Sharik, when he calmly observes the sacred rites of Preobrazhensky, “The pipes at that hour heated up to the highest point. The heat from them rose to the ceiling, from there it dispersed throughout the room. And shortly before the final, the MB states: "The gray harmonies of the pipes played." That is, throughout the story, the professor did not freeze at all. But about himself, in an afternoon conversation with Bormental, he speaks, not without pride, like this:

I am a man of facts, a man of observation. I am an enemy of unfounded hypotheses. ... If I say something, then it is based on a certain fact from which I draw a conclusion.

Why does he draw wrong conclusions from non-existent facts?

Since 1903 I have been living in this house, - says the doctor. - And so, during this time until March 1917, there was not a single case ... that at least one pair of galoshes would disappear from our front door with the common door unlocked. ... In March of the 17th year, one fine day, all galoshes disappeared, including two pairs of mine. ... The question is, who popped them? I? Can't be. Bourgeois Sablin? (Philip Philippovich pointed at the ceiling with his finger.) It's ridiculous to even guess. Sugar factory Polozov? (Philip Philippovich pointed to the side). In no case!

The professor is absolutely right: galoshes could disappear precisely in March of 1917, exactly after the February revolution, when A.F. Kerensky, having become the Minister of Justice, in fact abolished the previous legal proceedings, dispersed judicial figures and, together with political prisoners, granted amnesty to criminals. Urki filled the streets of Moscow and Petrograd, and there was no government for them. At that time it was known to everyone and everyone, including doctors. As well as the fact that proletarians and lumpen-proletarians are not the same thing.

But I ask, - the professor throws thunder and lightning, - why, when this whole story began, did everyone begin to walk in dirty galoshes and felt boots on the marble stairs? ... Why can't the proletarian leave his galoshes downstairs, but soil the marble?

But he, Philipp Philippovich, doesn’t have any galoshes at all, - Bormental objected to the teacher, not without reason.

A few hours ago, the professor himself blames Shvonder and Co., who came to "terrorize" him:

You, gentlemen, go in vain without galoshes in such weather - and now you completely forget about it.

Blaming and indignant, the doctor puts himself in a comical position: allegedly, with two pairs of galoshes stolen from him, he fooled all the galoshes of the proletarians - as the Savior fed with five loaves of bread and two fish "about five thousand people, except women and children" (Matt. 14: 21). MB also hints at this a little lower: “Having gained strength after a hearty dinner, he thundered like an ancient prophet.” Nothing but a smile can cause this in the reader.

Why is electricity, which, God forbid, went out twice for 20 years, now goes out neatly once a month?

Ruin, Philip Philipovich, - Bormental gives an absolutely accurate answer.

And he runs into a harsh rebuke, not justified by any reality.

No,” Philipp Philippovich retorted quite confidently, “no. ... This is a mirage, a smoke, a fiction. ... What is this devastation of yours? An old woman with a stick? The witch who broke all the windows, put out all the lamps? Yes, it doesn't exist at all.

The passage about the “old woman with a stick” is explained by B. V. Sokolov in his fundamental Bulgakov Encyclopedia (where for some reason nothing is said about the “little dark bread”): “In the early 1920s, a one-act play was staged in the Moscow Workshop of Communist Drama Valery Yazvitsky (1883-1957) "Who is to blame?" (“Ruin”), where the main character was an ancient crooked old woman in rags named Ruin, who interferes with the life of a proletarian family.

Now about power outages. The action of the SS, as I said, takes place in 1925, and over the previous 20 years, the following events have occurred in Russia:

1. The Russo-Japanese War, which began, however, a year earlier, but ended with the defeat of Russia in 1905. (The professor, let me remind you, has been living in Kalabukhov since 1903) “Russia spent 2,452 million rubles on the war, about 500 million rubles were lost in the form of property that went to Japan.” The Russian army lost from 32 to 50 thousand people killed. “In addition, 17,297 Russians ... soldiers and officers died from wounds and diseases” (hereinafter: data taken from Wikipedia - Yu. L.).

2. Revolution of 1905-1907. “In total, from 1901 to 1911, during the revolutionary terror, about 17 thousand people were killed and wounded (9 thousand of them fell directly on the period of the revolution of 1905-1907). In 1907, up to 18 people died on average every day. According to the police, only from February 1905 to May 1906 were killed: governors general, governors and town governors - 8, vice-governors and advisers to provincial boards - 5, police chiefs, county chiefs and police officers - 21, gendarmerie officers - 8, generals (combatants) - 4, officers (combatants) - 7, bailiffs and their assistants - 79, district guards - 125, policemen - 346, officers - 57, guards - 257, lower gendarmerie ranks - 55, security agents - 18, civil ranks - 85, clerics - 12, rural authorities - 52, landowners - 51, manufacturers and senior employees in factories - 54, bankers and large merchants - 29. The authorities responded with arrests, punitive measures and pogroms.

3. First World War 1914-1918. “In total, during the war years, more than 70 million people were mobilized in the armies of the warring countries, including 60 million in Europe, of which 9 to 10 million died. Civilian casualties are estimated at 7 to 12 million; about 55 million people were injured. ... As a result of the war, four empires ceased to exist: Russian, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and German.” According to various sources, the losses of the Russian army amounted to: killed and missing - from 700 to 1300 thousand people; wounded - from 2700 to 3900 thousand people; prisoners - from 2000 to 3500 thousand people.

4. February Revolution of 1917. “Although the February Revolution was called “bloodless”, in reality it was not so - only in Petrograd and only from the side of the rebels during the days of the overthrow of the old government, about 300 people died, about 1200 people were injured. About a hundred officers were killed in the Baltic Fleet. Blood was shed in many places in Russia. Start civil war in Russia, a number of historians count from February 1917.

6. The civil war, which lasted until July 1923. “During the Civil War, from hunger, disease, terror and in battles, (according to various sources) from 8 to 13 million people died. ... Up to 2 million people emigrated from the country. The number of homeless children has sharply increased... According to some data, in 1921 there were 4.5 million homeless children in Russia, according to others, in 1922 there were 7 million homeless children. The damage to the national economy amounted to about 50 billion gold rubles, industrial production fell to 4-20% of the level of 1913. ... Agricultural production decreased by 40%.

It is no coincidence that Darya Pavlovna, driving Sharik out of her kitchen area, yells:

Out! ... get out, homeless pickpocket! You were missing here! I'm a poker for you! .. - because after all the revolutionary ups and downs there was no salvation from street children, neither the "clean public", nor the street vendors, nor even the Nepman shops and storehouses.

And the great scientist doctor doesn’t know about anything like that, doesn’t he know?! Where did he live all this time? Abroad? Far from it. If he did not leave on his own or was not expelled from Russia on the infamous “philosophical ship”, as more than two hundred “prominent lawyers, doctors, economists, cooperative workers, writers, journalists, philosophers, higher school teachers, engineers” (electronic version of the Great Russian encyclopedia), therefore, he accepted Soviet power, began to cooperate “with the regime”, and therefore was not among the people who, according to L. D. Trotsky, “were expelled because there was no reason to shoot them, but there was impossible". And the professor talks about the 1920s, during which in Moscow, despite any cataclysms, electricity was "rotten ... twice." Only twice - in 20 years! This means that the proletarians, hated by Aesculapius, still work, work in the conditions of wars and revolutions, for 12-14 hours a day they are engaged in “their direct business” - ensuring his comfortable life, while living in barracks, basements and semi-basements, in the eyes not seeing either sturgeon, or roast beef with blood, or crayfish soup, or salmon, or pickled eels, or caviar, or cheese with a tear. For 20 years, the country has been literally shaking, in Moscow and Petrograd, shots are fired almost daily, people are dying, finally, there is a war that has claimed millions of lives - and Professor Preobrazhensky is sitting in his shell, studying medicine, operating, teaching, writing scientific work, builds his medical theories, holding his ears, closing his eyes, renouncing the chaos surrounding him?! Just like in B. Pasternak's poem "About these verses":

In the scarf, shielding with a palm,

Through the window I shout to the kids:

What, dear, we have

Millennium in the yard?

Or has the professor forgotten everything?

If I, instead of operating every evening, start singing in chorus in my apartment, I will have devastation, Preobrazhensky continues to broadcast. - If I, entering the restroom, start, excuse the expression, urinate past the toilet bowl and Zina and Darya Petrovna do the same, devastation will begin in the restroom.

Everything is so, but it is impossible to replace the objective factors listed by me above with everyday or subjective factors.

So, when these baritones shout "beat the devastation!" - I am laughing. ... This means that each of them must hit himself on the back of the head! And now, when he hatches all sorts of hallucinations out of himself and starts cleaning the sheds - his direct business - the devastation will disappear by itself.

That's it! It turns out that the people around the professor are suitable only for doing hard physical labor. This is their sacred duty, since they are called to work for Mr. Preobrazhensky and people like him. "His words on sleepy dog fell like a deaf underground rumble, ”writes MB. “He could earn money right at the rallies,” the dog dreamed dimly, to which the professor, with his speeches, “smashed all the brains into pieces, braided all the convolutions” (V. Vysotsky). “First-class businessman,” concludes the dog, drugged by words.

You can't serve two gods! It is impossible at the same time to sweep the tram lines and arrange the fate of some Spanish ragamuffins! No one succeeds, doctor, and even more so - people who, in general, are 200 years behind the Europeans in development, still do not quite confidently fasten their own pants!

Something similar about the Slavic peoples will be written by an aspiring German writer in a book called Mein Kampf, published just in 1925.

The professor himself, of course, has not lagged behind the Europeans, he is even ahead of them thanks to his medicine, and of course, he "confidently zips up his own pants." The conclusion is obvious: the Aesculapius hates and despises his own people, denying them the right to independently arrange their own destiny, to learn, to get an education, to develop. How much sarcasm, contempt and bewilderment contains, say, this phrase of his:

After all, Madame Lomonosov gave birth to this famous one in Kholmogory.

Say, "a stinker, an unenlightened brute" (B. V. Shergin. A word about Lomonosov), but come on, you have become a man. The professor, unlike A.N. Nekrasov (the poem "Schoolboy"), is disgusted to think that:

Arkhangelsk man

By your own and God's will

He became smart and great.

This does not fit into his picture of the world, contradicts his way of thinking, prevents him from living, existing, or, if you choose a more accurate verb, to go around.

Preobrazhensky himself - who? Is he a doctor and professor of medicine by birth? His "father - a cathedral archpriest" - was hardly satisfied with his son's professional choice. Perhaps the future Aesculapius had disagreements with the priest on religious grounds, because the son, as he is shown in the story, is a 100% atheist. Maybe a clergyman belonging to the so-called white clergy, in spite of everything, paid for his son’s studies, but it is quite likely that young Philip Preobrazhensky received an education in the same way as the vast majority of the then young people of the Russian Empire: money to live and pay for the course. In the meantime... I will quote from a completely different era, but the best suited to this situation: “You lived your 30 years (Professor 60 - Yu. L.) and ate something all the time. Vaughn drank hard, slept sweetly. And at this time, a whole people hunched over you, shod you, dressed you. Fought for you!" (S. S. Govorukhin. The meeting place cannot be changed).

And about the Spanish ragamuffins - to the point. The MB seems to foresee the events in fascist Spain, when the USSR helped the Republicans in the war against the Francoists. But you still need help. If at one time Russia had not helped, in the words of the professor, the Bulgarian ragamuffins near Shipka and Plevna, then Bulgaria as a state might not have existed. True, Preobrazhensky - what difference does it make to him! - somewhat confuses: a girl who looks like a young man offers the professor to help the starving children of Germany, which, after the defeat in the First World War, is taxed with an indemnity that is completely unbearable for her and where, because of this, general famine reigns. In Bortko's film, the professor's remark is edited: instead of "Spanish ragamuffins" it says "foreign ragamuffins". “Two gods cannot be served”, distorting and distorting the gospel quote about God and mammon, shouts Preobrazhensky, therefore he himself serves - earnestly and righteously - only one god: himself. Therefore, he does not see beyond his own nose, and therefore seethes with demagogic indignation, and therefore he utters, like a prophet, now famous:

Consequently, the devastation is not in the closets, but in the heads.

That's right. The devastation is not in the closet of Philip Philippovich, because there his "social servants" Zina and Darya Petrovna put things in order. The devastation is in the doctor's head, because there is no one to put things in order: truly - without a king in his head!

No, he knows and remembers everything! He remembers executions, expropriations, humiliations, his trampled human dignity, perhaps colleagues and acquaintances who were repressed or left Russia. He remembers the cold and hunger of post-revolutionary Moscow, when the old well-fed life collapsed and in order to survive, it was necessary to sell what was hidden and not expropriated. He remembers, but he tries not to think about it, to erase it completely from his memory - because he is afraid of the “rebellious boor”, “charming house committee” and dirty boots on marble stairs and Persian carpets to death. That is why it calls:

Policeman! This and only this. And it does not matter at all - whether he will be with a badge or in a red cap. Put a policeman next to each person and force this policeman to moderate the vocal impulses of our citizens. ... As soon as they stop their concerts, the situation will change for the better by itself.

The professor accepts - not only with his body, but also with his soul - even the Soviet power he hates - if only life would flow in a normal, from his point of view, channel.

I am a supporter of the division of labor. Let them sing at the Bolshoi, and I will operate. That's good. And no disruption...

And let the policeman “in a red cap” keep an eye on the proletarian, and let the proletarian fulfill his main mission - to work hard, to hunch, and not to meddle with his pig snout in the row of professors Preobrazhensky. Another German writer was absolutely right when he said: “But there are those who consider it a virtue to say: “Virtue is necessary”; but in their hearts they believe only in the necessity of the police.” (F. Nietzsche. Thus spoke Zarathustra. About the virtuous). This is how the future Sharikov could have reasoned, had he come out from under the doctor's scalpel an educated and cultured person.

Therefore, “Philip Philippovich got excited” in the course of the conversation, because he was sure that the intercessor “assigned” to him would forever overshadow him with his highly raised wings. That is why he answers Bormenthal's remark about the counter-revolutionary nature of his philistine chatter:

There is no such counter-revolution in my words. They have common sense and life experience.

Alas, they have neither common sense nor worldly experience. If they were available, the professor would at least not have believed that the times of the new economic policy that came after war communism are "seriously and for a long time." It is no coincidence that “a woman disguised as a man” says to him before leaving:

If you were not a European luminary, and you would not be interceded for in the most outrageous way ... faces, which, I am sure, we will explain ...

The verb "explain" in the KGB jargon of that time meant - to arrest and shoot. When the next “time of clarification” comes in the USSR, from which no one will be insured, Shvonder and his house committee will remember everything for the professor. And if they themselves are “explained” by that time, then the holy place is never empty ...

8. For slaughter

The sweet dog life has swelled. “During the week, the dog ate as much as in the last one and a half hungry months on the street. Well, of course, only by weight. There was no need to talk about the quality of Philip Philipovich's food. ... Philip Philipovich finally received the title of a deity. Hooliganism, however, is not forgiven: “They dragged me to poke at an owl (“explained” by Sharik the day before - Yu. L.), and the dog burst into bitter tears and thought: “Beat, just don’t kick me out of the apartment” ... The next day on the dog put on a wide shiny collar. And although on a walk "some lanky mongrel with a chopped off tail barks at him" lordly bastard "and" six "", Sharik is not at all upset, because "Mad envy was read in the eyes of all the dogs he met." And when - unheard of! - "Fyodor the doorman unlocked the front door with his own hands and let Sharik in," he mentally sharpens: "A collar is like a briefcase."

Despite the stormy opposition of the cook, the dog also penetrates “into the realm ... of Darya Petrovna”, into the kitchen, where “with a sharp narrow knife she chopped off the heads and paws of helpless hazel grouses, then, like a furious executioner, tore off the flesh from the bones, tore out the insides from the chickens , something was spitting in a meat grinder. At that time, the ball was tormenting the hazel grouse's head. Let us note the comparison of the noble craft of the cook with the vile activity of the shoulder work of the masters, the similarity with the scalpel of the surgeon of her “narrow knife”, who chopped the hazel grouses in the presence of Sharik, who during the day looks at the kitchen passions-faces, and in the evenings “lay on the carpet in the shade and, not looking up , looked at terrible things. In a disgusting, caustic and cloudy liquid, human brains lay in glass vessels. The hands of the deity (we already know who it is - Yu. L.), bare to the elbow, were in red rubber gloves, and slippery blunt fingers swarmed in the convolutions. At times, the deity armed himself with a small sparkling knife and quietly cut the yellow elastic brains. And, of course, quietly sang:

To the banks of the sacred Nile.

That is, during the day Sharik observes the culinary massacre, in the evening - the medical one. Finally, “that terrible day” comes when the dog “even in the morning” with an animal instinct senses something was wrong, and therefore “he ate half a cup of oatmeal and yesterday’s lamb bone without any appetite.” And then there’s Bormenthal “brought a foul-smelling suitcase with him, and without even undressing, rushed with it through the corridor to the examination room.” But we understand that someone has died, because the day before the professor instructed the assistant:

That's what, Ivan Arnoldovich, you still follow carefully: as soon as a suitable death, immediately from the table - into the nutrient fluid and to me!

Don't worry, Philipp Philippovich, the pathologists promised me.

Who dies is completely unimportant to the doctor; the main thing is that the death of a person should be “suitable”. Upon learning of the arrival of his faithful student, "Philip Filippovich threw an unfinished cup of coffee, which had never happened to him, ran out to meet Bormental." In addition, "Zina suddenly turned out to be in a dressing gown that looked like a shroud, and began to run from the examination room to the kitchen and back." And - the height of meanness and humiliation! - Sharik, who did not even have time to have breakfast, was "lured and locked in the bathroom." When "the semi-darkness in the bathroom became terrible, he howled, rushed to the door, and began to scratch." “Then he weakened, lay down, and when he got up, the hair on him suddenly stood on end, for some reason disgusting wolf eyes appeared in the bath.” In a word, something bad is brewing.

Further - worse. They drag the ball by the collar into the examination room, and there - “The white ball under the ceiling shone to the point that it hurt the eyes. A priest stood in the white radiance and hummed through his teeth about the sacred banks of the Nile (where would it be without it - Yu. L.) ... the deity was all in white, and over the white, like a stole, was wearing a narrow rubber apron. Hands are in black gloves. Most of all, the dog is struck by the eyes of the “bitten” one: “Usually bold and direct, now they ran in all directions from the dog’s eyes. They were alert, false, and in the depths of them lurked a bad, dirty deed, if not a whole crime. As an “Indication for surgery”, Bormenthal writes in his diary: “Setting up the experiment of Preobrazhensky with a combined transplantation of the pituitary gland and testicles to clarify the question of the survival of the pituitary gland, and later on its influence on the rejuvenation of the body in people.” The first time a dog is placed on the operating table for the sake of a good cause - the treatment of a scalded side, and now - for some incomprehensible experiment, and the experimenter is not at all sure of its positive outcome. Rather, on the contrary, I am convinced of the negative, because “the operation according to prof. Preobrazhensky”, as it turns out from the notes of the same Bormental, “the first in Europe”.

“Zina instantly became the same vile eyes, like a bitten one. She went up to the dog and stroked him, obviously falsely. He looked at her with longing and contempt,” and then thought: “Well ... There are three of you. Take it if you want. Only shame on you ... ”But this dog is dozing off from shame, just not to hear the revelations of the depraved patients of Preobrazhensky, and the Aesculapians, who lured and tamed the dog, are not ashamed. More precisely, the professor is not ashamed, because his eyes have not changed at all; it is still embarrassing for his assistants to betray the dog that trusts them. The “animal,” as Sharikov later put it, is seized, put to sleep with chloroform, and gutted, and in the process, hippocrates, wielding a scalpel in the Turkish saddle of the brain (the recess where the pituitary gland is located), says in plain text:

You know, sorry for him. Guess I'm used to it.

As you can see, Sharik, even in a lulled form, does not believe in false pity - crocodile tears - of the Preobrazhensky deity. At the most tense moment, when there was not a moment to lose, the surgeons "were agitated, like murderers who are in a hurry." Like killers!

I leave out the creepy medical details. I will focus only on two or three, very colorful ones. "One time a thin fountain of blood struck, almost hit the professor's eye, and sprinkled his cap." In A. Lattuada's film to Professor Preobrazhensky, Sharik's blood gets on his glasses (metaphorically fills his eyes - Yu. L.), wiped by his assistant Zina. And the golden crown in the mouth of a stern priest in a doll and with a scalpel gleams ominously! In the description of MB, Preobrazhensky “has become positively scary. A whistle escaped from his nose, his teeth opened to the gums. He tore off the shell from the brain and went somewhere deeper, pushing the hemispheres of the brain out of the opened bowl. And further: “At the same time, his face became like that of an inspired robber” ... In response to Bormental’s timid remark about the weak pulse of the operated, “terrible Philipp Philippovich” whines:

No time to discuss here. ... He will die anyway ... - not forgetting to sing: - To the banks of the sacred Nile ...

At the very end of the operation, the "inspired robber" asks:

Died, of course?

Of course he will die. Only later. Good people will try.

When “the lifeless, extinct muzzle of Sharik with a ring wound on his head appeared on the pillow against a blood-stained background ... Philipp Philippovich fell off completely, like a well-fed vampire.” Then he demanded from Zina “a cigarette ... fresh linen and a bath”, “two fingers apart right eyelid dog, looked into the obviously dying eye and said "something like a waste for the living being slaughtered by him:

Here, damn it. Don't die. Well, it still sucks. Oh, Dr. Bormental, sorry for the dog, he was affectionate, although cunning.

So. Before surgery doctors put on caps resembling a “patriarchal cockle”, and the “head physician” also wears a “rubber narrow apron” similar to a “epitrachel” in order not to stain the clothes with the blood of the operated person. That is, from the outside, the "accomplices" look almost blissfully, almost like priests. But how strikingly their appearance differs from their behavior! They worry "like murderers"; Preobrazhensky becomes like an "inspired robber"; falls off the operated dog, “like a well-fed vampire”, sucking blood, is a deadly characteristic; and in the course of the operation, Bormental, “like a tiger”, rushes to the aid of the professor in order to stop the stream of blood that spurted from the unfortunate Sharik. Finally, a very eloquent paragraph: “The knife jumped into his hands (the professor - Yu. L.) as if by itself, after which Philip Philippovich's face became terrible. He bared his porcelain and gold crowns and, with one stroke, placed a red crown on Sharik's forehead. Skin with shaved hair was thrown back like a scalp. But the main thing is that the "value of world significance" is absolutely sure of the hopelessness of the experience and makes it at random: what if it works out, and if not, then the dog is more, the dog is less ... The white coat on Zina, I remind you, is like a "shroud", in which would probably wrap up the dog if he died. But Sharik - to the surprise of the wise hippocrats - turns out to be incredibly tenacious, because they fed him for slaughter - in the literal sense of the word - so that he would be fat and could withstand the operation. In the words of the author, “a dirty deed, if not a whole crime” is being committed in a “obscene apartment”. And if an experience begins with a crime, it is unlikely that it will end with anything else.

Yuri Lifshitz, 2017-2018.

Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog" must be read not once, but several times. After all, each next reading evokes thoughts and emotions in the reader, forcing him to take a different look at the difficult time described in the story. Even those who know the history of Russia well cannot give an objective assessment of the events of the post-revolutionary period. After all, in order to correctly assess reality, you need to be a participant in certain events. Bulgakov's story gives us the opportunity to "transfer" to the past and look at the world through the eyes of an eyewitness.
The episode of the story that tells us about Shvonder's visit to Professor Preobrazhensky is, of course, a caricature. But this is the intention of the author. With the help of sophisticated grotesque humor, he tries to convey to the reader the absurdity of the confrontation between the old Russian intelligentsia, which in the post-revolutionary era turned out to be humiliated and destroyed, and the bureaucrats, who in every possible way encouraged and supported the true "masters of life" - and the Tarii.
Shvonder takes an active part in the fate of Sharikov, who is a collective image, personifying the "new man" - the lumpen proletarian. Shvonder considers it his direct duty to help Sharikov adapt to life, to obtain legal rights. In the story, Shvonder makes sure that former dog documents appeared. However, we soon see that Sharikov disappoints his patron. He does not want to go to war, frankly declares that he "is entitled to a white ticket."
Sharikov is useless to society, but Shvonder does not understand this. We see that Shvonder stands a step above Sharikov, he is invested with power. However, this does not affect his mental abilities too much. Shvonder is used to thinking in cliches, and it is difficult for him to understand that such a tin as Sharikov does not correspond to some rules and canons. Sharikov is the personification of all the bad qualities and inclinations that a person can have. Devoid of any human feelings, he is aggressive, and therefore scary. No one can control Sharikov, not even Shyonder. But he, unfortunately, does not understand this.
In the analyzed episode, we see that Shvonder is surprised and shocked by Sharikov's irresponsibility, who is not going to go to war. There is nothing surprising in this: the developed instinct of self-preservation makes the newly-minted lumpen proletarian look for any ways in order to ensure his own safety. A society that will try to rely on such "ball" ones is doomed to perish. Professor Preobrazhensky understands this perfectly, but Shvonder, unfortunately, does not.
The professor tries to buy a free room for Sharikov. Naturally, he gets rejected. This attempt embodies the intention of the Russian intelligentsia to try to draw a line between themselves and the "new people". After all, after the revolution, intelligent people did not immediately understand that it was impossible to coexist peacefully with the “new masters of life”. Aggressive and cruel Sharikovs do not spare anyone, including people like Shvonder.
The true value of the episode, which shows the communication of the main characters of the story, is that we get an idea of ​​what methods certain people acted in the post-revolutionary era. The “new people”, personified by Sharikov, do not yet feel like true masters. But they have already understood that they are willing to support them willingly, which is what Shvonder is doing.
The old Russian intelligentsia is defenseless against the proletarians and the bureaucrats. Attempts to somehow outline the boundaries of their world, to protect what has always belonged to them, are futile. Professor Preobrazhensky realizes with the deepest bitterness that he and those like him are becoming more and more alien, hostile to the new Russia every day.
Shvonder, as it were, releases the "genie from the bottle." In the role of "genie", of course, is Sharikov. He gains strength, realizes his confidence and rightness. This is where the readiness to act appears. And then this active and terrible force will be unstoppable. Everyone will suffer from it, including Shvonder.

The story "Heart of a Dog", written in 1925, M. Bulgakov did not see printed, as it was confiscated from the author along with his diaries by the OGPU during a search. "Heart of a Dog" - the last satirical story of the writer. Everything, that...

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Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog", subtitled "A Monstrous Story", was not published during the life of the writer. It was first published in 1968. ("Student". London. NN 9, 10; "Frontiers". Frankfurt. N 69). In the USSR, it was published in the Znamya magazine ...

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The satirical stories of M. Bulgakov occupy a special place both in his work and in all Russian literature. If they had been widely published and appreciated in their time, they might have been able to serve as a warning against many mistakes - but, alas, ...

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   So, as a sign of peaceful greetings, I take off my hat, beat my forehead, Recognizing the philosopher-poet Under a careful cap. A. S. Pushkin According to the genre, “Heart of a Dog” (1925) is a story, but, speaking about its genre originality, it should be recognized that this is a socio-philosophical ...

The satirical story by M. A. Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog" was written in 1925. It combines three genre and art forms: fantasy, social dystopia and satirical pamphlet. At the heart of the story is a risky experiment. The most difficult operation,...

2. New!

   M. Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog" combines three genre and artistic forms: fantasy, social dystopia and satirical pamphlet. The most complicated operation performed by Professor Preobrazhensky, its stunning results are, of course, ...