Subject of the work

At one time, M. Bulgakov’s satirical story caused a lot of talk. In “Heart of a Dog” the heroes of the work are bright and memorable; the plot is fantasy mixed with reality and subtext, in which sharp criticism of the Soviet regime is openly read. Therefore, the work was very popular in the 60s among dissidents, and in the 90s, after its official publication, it was even recognized as prophetic.

The theme of the tragedy of the Russian people is clearly visible in this work; in “Heart of a Dog” the main characters enter into an irreconcilable conflict with each other and will never understand each other. And, although the proletarians won in this confrontation, Bulgakov in the novel reveals to us the whole essence of the revolutionaries and their type of new man in the person of Sharikov, leading us to the idea that they will not create or do anything good.

Main characters " Heart of a Dog“There are only three, and the narrative is mainly told from Bormenthal’s diary and through the dog’s monologue.

Characteristics of the main characters

Sharikov

A character who appeared as a result of an operation from the mongrel Sharik. A transplant of the pituitary gland and gonads of the drunkard and rowdy Klim Chugunkin turned a sweet and friendly dog ​​into Poligraf Poligrafych, a parasite and a hooligan.
Sharikov embodies all the negative traits of the new society: he spits on the floor, throws cigarette butts, does not know how to use the restroom and constantly swears. But this is not even the worst thing - Sharikov quickly learned to write denunciations and found a calling in killing his eternal enemies, cats. And while he deals only with cats, the author makes it clear that he will do the same with people who stand in his way.

Bulgakov saw this base power of the people and a threat to the entire society in the rudeness and narrow-mindedness with which the new revolutionary government resolves issues.

Professor Preobrazhensky

An experimenter who uses innovative developments in solving the problem of rejuvenation through organ transplantation. He is a famous world scientist, a respected surgeon, whose “speaking” surname gives him the right to experiment with nature.

I was used to living in grand style - servants, a house of seven rooms, luxurious dinners. His patients are former nobles and high revolutionary officials who patronize him.

Preobrazhensky is a respectable, successful and self-confident person. The professor is an opponent of any terror and Soviet power, calls them “idlers and idlers.” He considers affection the only way to communicate with living beings and denies the new government precisely for its radical methods and violence. His opinion: if people are accustomed to culture, then the devastation will disappear.

The rejuvenation operation yielded an unexpected result - the dog turned into a human. But the man turned out to be completely useless, uneducable and absorbing the worst. Philip Philipovich concludes that nature is not a field for experiments and he interfered with its laws in vain.

Dr. Bormenthal

Ivan Arnoldovich is completely and completely devoted to his teacher. At one time, Preobrazhensky took an active part in the fate of a half-starved student - he enrolled him in the department, and then took him on as an assistant.

The young doctor tried in every possible way to develop Sharikov culturally, and then completely moved in with the professor, as it became more and more difficult to cope with the new person.

The apotheosis was the denunciation that Sharikov wrote against the professor. At the climax, when Sharikov took out a revolver and was ready to use it, it was Bromenthal who showed firmness and toughness, while Preobrazhensky hesitated, not daring to kill his creation.

The positive characterization of the heroes of “Heart of a Dog” emphasizes how important honor and self-dignity are for the author. Bulgakov described himself and his doctors-relatives in many of the same traits as both doctors, and in many ways would have acted the same way as them.

Shvonder

The newly elected chairman of the house committee, who hates the professor as a class enemy. This is a schematic hero, without deep reasoning.

Shvonder completely bows to the new revolutionary government and its laws, and in Sharikov he sees not a person, but a new useful unit of society - he can buy textbooks and magazines, participate in meetings.

Sh. can be called Sharikov’s ideological mentor; he tells him about his rights in Preobrazhensky’s apartment and teaches him how to write denunciations. The chairman of the house committee, due to his narrow-mindedness and lack of education, always hesitates and gives in in conversations with the professor, but this makes him hate him even more.

Other heroes

The list of characters in the story would not be complete without two au pairs - Zina and Daria Petrovna. They recognize the superiority of the professor, and, like Bormenthal, are completely devoted to him and agree to commit a crime for the sake of their beloved master. They proved this at the time of the repeated operation to transform Sharikov into a dog, when they were on the side of the doctors and accurately followed all their instructions.

You have become acquainted with the characteristics of the heroes of Bulgakov’s “Heart of a Dog,” a fantastic satire that anticipated the collapse of Soviet power immediately after its emergence - the author, back in 1925, showed the whole essence of those revolutionaries and what they were capable of.

Work test

The image of Professor Preobrazhensky (based on the story “Heart of a Dog” by M. Bulgakov)

The story “Heart of a Dog” is one of the pinnacle works of M. A. Bulgakov. It combines specific signs of the reality of the 20s. and fantasy. The writer shows a grotesque image of his contemporary reality.

“Bulgakov took a new turn on the theme of the responsibility of science (and, more broadly, theory) to living life in “The Heart of a Dog.” The author never saw this story, written in 1925, published. It talked about unpredictable consequences scientific discoveries, that an experiment that gets ahead of itself and deals with inadequate human consciousness is dangerous,” wrote literary critic V. Ya. Lakshin.

At the center of “Heart of a Dog” is the story of the transformation of the stray dog ​​Sharik into the man Poligraf Poligrafovich. The author of the experiment is Professor Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky.

“No, there is no smell of the proletarian here,” this is Sharik’s first impression of the professor. Indeed, Preobrazhensky is a real aristocrat, the son of a cathedral archpriest. He is the living embodiment of the passing Russian culture. The doctor wears a black suit of English cloth, a gold chain, and a black and brown fox fur coat. Philip Philipovich has a servant with whom he maintains respectful, good relations. He is no longer a young man. Lives in a luxurious, comfortable apartment. Despite the ongoing process of “densification of apartments,” Philip Philipovich lives in seven rooms. It has a dining room, although even Isadora Duncan does not have one.

Lunch at Preobrazhensky's is a real ritual. His table is rich in salmon and pickled eels. The author draws both a piece of cheese with a tear and caviar. Rich dishes: plates with birds of paradise, decanters, glasses with multi-colored vodkas - a marble table, a carved oak buffet, a table and more only complement the general picture of the aristocratic life of Preobrazhensky.

The appearance of the professor is surprisingly charming. His speech is full of aphorisms. He is smart, quite self-possessed in argument, sharp with words, and erudite. Philip Philipovich is well acquainted with the repertoire of Moscow theaters, constantly hums lines from his favorite opera, and is not averse to spending his leisure time culturally.

Preobrazhensky behaves confidently and boldly in clashes with the company headed by Shvonder. “This guy,” Sharik admires him, “is just like me.”

Preobrazhensky openly admits his dislike for the proletariat. The rudeness, swagger, excessive self-confidence and impudence of the proletarians are alien and hateful to him. He speaks with irony about Soviet newspapers, predicts the onset of imminent economic ruin, and notes with indignation about the changes that came after March 1917. Galoshes are now disappearing from his house, some people don’t consider it necessary to take off their shoes in front of the marble staircase, the carpet has been removed from the main staircase, flowers have disappeared from the landings, the electricity goes out once a month. The direct purpose of the proletariat, according to Preobrazhensky, is not to govern the country, but to clean the barns.

Philip Philipovich is a typical character. He lives on Prechistenka, where the hereditary Moscow intelligentsia has long settled. The writer himself knew and loved this Moscow region very well. Here he also wrote “Heart of a Dog.” On Prechistenka there lived people close to Bulgakov in spirit, culture, and upbringing.

Philip Philipovich is a luminary of medicine. He is engaged in rare and profitable operations to rejuvenate aging ladies and gentlemen who do not want to come to terms with the laws of nature. The author's irony and sarcasm towards Preobrazhensky's patients is merciless. He calls one of them “fruit.” The “fruit” has green hair that turns rusty tobacco color at the back of his head, an infantile complexion with no wrinkles, an unbending left leg and a jumping right leg. Another patient has terrible black bags hanging under her eyes, and her cheeks are doll-colored. She is fifty-one years old, but she passes herself off as forty-five. Another visitor to the professor has a relationship with a very young person and is very afraid of publicity. “An obscene apartment,” thinks Sharik, having seen enough of Preobrazhensky’s activities.

Nevertheless, doctors like the professor are rare. The doctor is incredibly respected by his assistant Bormental. “It has no equal in Europe... by God!” - he exclaims with admiration.

Preobrazhensky repeatedly speaks about the inadmissibility of violence against a living being. “You can only act by suggestion,” he claims, but he plans to improve nature itself by transplanting some human organs into a dog. The surgeon needed the dog as material for experiments to correct imperfect human nature.

Only some time after the operation, the professor realizes the immorality of scientific violence against nature and man. “I tried it, but it was unsuccessful,” he sadly remarks about his experiment. During the course of the story, the portrait of the professor changes several times. At first it is a rich gentleman beaming with prosperity, then a hunched and seemingly graying old man, and in the finale - the former imperious and energetic Philip Philipovich. Preobrazhensky ultimately makes an important conclusion for himself that “in evolutionary order,” every year dozens of outstanding geniuses stubbornly stand out “from the mass of all scum” and “decorate the globe.”

Associated with the image of a brilliant professor is the author’s idea of ​​responsibility for any experiment. Any experience, according to the writer, must be well planned and thought out to the end and not contain violent methods of remaking reality, otherwise its consequences can lead to a real disaster.

Bulgakov's attitude towards Preobrazhensky is ambiguous. He respects and loves him as a true representative of the intelligentsia, but condemns him as the author of a very dubious and dangerous experiment.

Starting my thoughts about Professor Preobrazhensky, the hero of the work “Heart of a Dog,” I would like to dwell a little on some facts of the biography of the author - Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (05/15/1891 Kyiv - 03/10/1940, Moscow), Russian writer, theater playwright and director. All this is in order to draw some parallels that will largely unite the author and his imaginary hero.

A little about the author's biography

Bulgakov was born into the family of an associate professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy, but he himself soon became a student at the medical faculty of Kyiv University. During World War I he worked as a front-line doctor. In the spring of 1918, he returned to Kyiv, where he practiced as a private venereologist. IN civil war 1919 Bulgakov is a military doctor of the Ukrainian Military Army, then of the Armed Forces of southern Russia, the Red Cross, the Volunteer Army, etc. Having fallen ill with typhus in 1920, he was treated in Vladikavkaz, and after that his writing talent awoke. He will write to his cousin that he has finally understood: his job is to write.

Prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky

You can really compare Bulgakov with the prototype of the main character; they have too much in common. However, it is generally accepted that Preobrazhensky (the professor) as an image was copied from his uncle Mikhail Afanasyevich, a famous Moscow doctor, gynecologist

In 1926, the OGPU conducted a search of the writer, and as a result, the manuscripts of “The Heart of a Dog” and the diary were confiscated.

This story was dangerous for the writer because it became a satire on the Soviet regime of the 20-30s. The newly created class of the proletariat is represented here by heroes like the Shvonders and Sharikovs, who are absolutely far from the values ​​of the destroyed tsarist Russia.

They are all opposed to Professor Preobrazhensky, whose quotes deserve special attention. This surgeon and scientist, a luminary of Russian science, appears for the first time at the moment when in the story the dog, the future Sharikov, dies in a city gateway - hungry and cold, with a burnt side. The professor appears at the most painful hours for the dog. The dog’s thoughts “voice” Preobrazhensky as a cultured gentleman, with an intelligent beard and mustache, like those of French knights.

Experiment

Professor Preobrazhensky's main business is to treat people, to look for new ways to achieve longevity and effective means of rejuvenation. Of course, like any scientist, he could not live without experiments. He picks up the dog, and at the same time a plan is born in the doctor’s head: he decides to perform an operation to transplant the pituitary gland. He does this experiment on a dog in the hope of finding an effective method for gaining a “second youth.” However, the consequences of the operation were unexpected.

Over the course of several weeks, the dog, which was given the nickname Sharik, becomes a human and receives documents bearing the name Sharikov. Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Bormenthal are trying to instill in him worthy and noble human manners. However, their “education” does not bring any visible results.

Transformation into a human

Preobrazhensky expresses his opinion to assistant Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental: it is necessary to understand the horror that Sharikov no longer has a dog’s heart, but a human one, and “the lousiest of all those existing in nature.”

Bulgakov created a parody of the socialist revolution, described the clash of two classes, in which Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky is a professor and intellectual, and the working class is Sharikov and others like him.

The professor, like a real nobleman, accustomed to luxury, living in a 7-room apartment and every day eating various delicacies such as salmon, eels, turkey, roast beef, and washing it all down with cognac, vodka and wine, suddenly found himself in an unexpected situation. The unbridled and arrogant Sharikovs and Shvonders burst into his calm and proportionate aristocratic life.

House committee

Shvonder is a separate example of the proletarian class; he and his company form the house committee in the house where Preobrazhensky, an experimental professor, lives. They, however, seriously began to fight him. But he is also not so simple, Professor Preobrazhensky’s monologue about the devastation in people’s heads suggests that the proletariat and its interests are simply hateful to him, and as long as he has the opportunity to devote himself to his favorite business (science), he will be indifferent to petty swindlers and swindlers like Shvondera.

But he enters into a serious struggle with his household member Sharikov. If Shvonder puts pressure purely outwardly, then you cannot so easily disown Sharikov, because it is he who is the product of his scientific activity and the product of an unsuccessful experiment. Sharikov brings such chaos and destruction into his house that in two weeks the professor experienced more stress than in all his years.

Image

However, the image of Professor Preobrazhensky is very curious. No, he is by no means the embodiment of virtue. He, just like any person, has his own shortcomings, he is a rather selfish, narcissistic, vain, but a living and real person. Preobrazhensky became the image of a real intellectual, alone fighting the devastation brought by the Sharikov generation. Isn't this fact worthy of sympathy, respect and sympathy?

Time for revolution

The story “Heart of a Dog” shows the reality of the 20s of the twentieth century. Dirty streets are described, where signs are hung everywhere promising a bright future for people. An even more depressing mood is caused by bad, cold stormy weather and the homeless image of a dog, which, like most Soviet people of a new country under construction, literally survives and is in constant search of warmth and food.

It is in this chaos that one of the few intellectuals who survived during a dangerous and difficult time, Preobrazhensky, appears - an aristocratic professor. The character Sharikov, still in his dog body, assessed him in his own way: that he “eats abundantly and does not steal, will not kick, and he himself is not afraid of anyone, because he is always full.”

Two sides

The image of Preobrazhensky is like a ray of light, like an island of stability, satiety and well-being in a terrible reality post-war years. He's actually nice. But many do not like a person who, in general, everything is going well, but for whom it is not enough to have seven rooms - he wants another one, an eighth, to make a library in it.

However, the house committee began an intensified struggle against the professor and wanted to take his apartment away from him. In the end, the proletarians did not manage to harm the professor, and therefore the reader could not help but rejoice at this fact.

But this is only one side of the coin of Preobrazhensky’s life, and if you delve deeper into the essence of the matter, you can see a not very attractive picture. The wealth that he has main character Bulgakov, Professor Preobrazhensky, it must be said, did not suddenly fall on his head and was not inherited from rich relatives. He made his wealth himself. And now he serves people who have received power into their hands, because now it is their time to enjoy all the benefits.

One of Preobrazhensky’s clients voices very interesting things: “No matter how much I steal, everything goes to female body, Abrau-Durso champagne and cancer necks." But the professor, despite all his high morality, intelligence and sensitivity, does not try to reason with his patient, re-educate him or express displeasure. He understands that he needs money to support his usual way of life without need: with all the necessary servants in the house, with a table filled with all sorts of dishes such as sausages not from Mosselprom or caviar spread on crispy fresh bread.

In the work, Professor Preobrazhensky uses a dog’s heart for his experiment. Not because of his love for animals, he picks up an exhausted dog to feed or warm him, but because, as it seems to him, a brilliant, but monstrous plan for him has arisen in his head. And further in the book this operation is described in detail, which only causes unpleasant emotions. As a result of the rejuvenation operation, the professor ends up with a “newborn” person in his hands. That’s why it’s not in vain that Bulgakov gives a telling surname and status to his hero - Preobrazhensky, a professor who implants the cerebellum of the repeat offender Klimka into the dog that came to him. This bore fruit; the professor did not expect such side effects.

Professor Preobrazhensky's phrases contain thoughts about education, which, in his opinion, could make Sharikov a more or less acceptable member social society. But Sharikov was not given a chance. Preobrazhensky had no children, and he did not know the basics of pedagogy. Perhaps that is why his experiment did not go in the right direction.

And few people pay attention to Sharikov’s words that he, like a poor animal, was grabbed, striped and now they are abhorring him, but he, by the way, did not give his permission for the operation and can sue. And, what is most interesting, no one notices the truth behind his words.

Teacher and educator

Preobrazhensky became the first literature teacher for Sharikov, although he understood that learning to speak does not mean becoming a full-fledged person. He wanted to make a highly developed personality out of the beast. After all, the professor himself in the book is the standard of education and high culture and a supporter of old, pre-revolutionary mores. He very clearly defined his position, speaking about the ensuing devastation and the inability of the proletariat to cope with it. The professor believes that people should first of all be taught the most basic culture; he is sure that using brute force, nothing can be achieved in the world. He realizes that he has created a being with dead soul, and finds the only way out: to do the opposite operation, since his educational methods did not work on Sharikov, because in a conversation with the maid Zina he noted: “You can’t fight anyone... You can influence a person and an animal only by suggestion.”

But the skills of demagoguery, as it turns out, are learned much easier and faster than the skills of creative activity. And Shvonder succeeds in raising Sharikov. He does not teach him grammar and mathematics, but begins immediately with the correspondence between Engels and Kautsky, as a result of which Sharikov, with his low level of development, despite the complexity of the topic, from which his “head was swollen,” came to the conclusion: “Take everything and share!” This idea of ​​social justice was understood best of all by the people's power and the newly minted citizen Sharikov.

Professor Preobrazhensky: “Devastation in our heads”

It should be noted that “Heart of a Dog” shows from all sides the absurdity and madness of the new structure of society that arose after 1917. Professor Preobrazhensky understood this well. The character's quotes about the devastation in their heads are unique. He says that if a doctor, instead of performing operations, starts singing in chorus, he will be ruined. If he begins to urinate past the toilet, and all his servants do this, then devastation will begin in the restroom. Consequently, the devastation is not in the closets, but in the heads.

Famous quotes by Professor Preobrazhensky

In general, the book “Heart of a Dog” is a real quotation book. The professor’s main and vivid expressions were described in the text above, but there are several more that also deserve the reader’s attention and will be interesting for various reflections.

“He who is not in a hurry succeeds everywhere.”

- “Why was the carpet removed from the main staircase? What, Karl Marx forbids carpets on the stairs?

- “Humanity itself takes care of this and, in an evolutionary order, every year persistently creates dozens of outstanding geniuses from the mass of all kinds of scum that adorn the globe.”

- “What is this destruction of yours? An old woman with a stick? A witch who knocked out all the windows and put out all the lamps?”

The hero of the story “Heart of a Dog” is professor of medicine Philip Filippovich Preobrazhensky. He deals with the then fashionable problem of human rejuvenation. We must pay tribute to the scientist’s talent. He is known for his works abroad. A hard worker: he sees patients, and then, in the evening, he studies medical literature. The professor is no stranger to small earthly joys: he loves to eat deliciously, shine in respected society in expensive clothes, chat with his assistant Bormenthal on various slippery topics. In a word, a typical intellectual to whom the Soviet government had not yet managed to completely cut off, as they say, oxygen. However, the Bolsheviks are quite happy with such a scientist: he is not involved in politics.

The main events unfold after the appearance of the mongrel Sharik in the professor’s house. His character amazingly is consonant with “homo sovieticus”: the dog is ready to do anything for a piece of sausage, he has a quarrelsome and aggressive character. Passing by the doorman, Sharik thinks: “I wish I could pinch his proletarian calloused foot.” And he looks at the stuffed owl with the following feelings: “And this owl is rubbish. Impudent. We will explain it."

The professor, passionate about science, does not notice what kind of monster he brought into the house. As an experiment, he transplants human seminal glands into Sharik, dreaming of benefiting humanity. Before the eyes of the amazed scientist, the dog gradually turns into a man.

Sharik, or now Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov, quickly finds his social niche in human society. Everything is happening as in the Soviet state: the lower classes, having seized power, begin to crowd out everything that previously occupied this social living space. As a result, his “parent” Preobrazhensky almost ends up on the street, and only his old connections save him from Sharikov’s lawlessness.

Bulgakov shows psychological type a Russian scientist who had not yet encountered all the “delights” of the Bolshevik regime. They also stroked his fur. But he, carried away by his developments, did not notice that he himself had created such a representative of harsh power.

The ball literally snatches the scientist from the light. Behind the ridiculousness of the plot lies the deep tragedy of the Russian scientific intelligentsia, which in those years unwittingly helped the Bolsheviks strengthen their position. The Sharikovs gradually advanced to all the highest echelons of power and began not only to poison the fate of normal people, but also to decide it. They began to define and foreign policy countries.

Professor in late repentance complains about his mistake: “I cared about something completely different, about eugenics, about improving the human race. And then I ran into rejuvenation.” Realizing his fatal mistake, the professor becomes a participant in the crime: on the advice of Bormental, they decide to get rid of Sharikov and free humanity from this nightmare.

The professor decides to perform another operation and returns Sharikov to his previous state.

The ending of the story, however, is not happy, because outside the walls of the professor’s house, where the dog Sharik is sleeping peacefully, there are many people infected with Sharikov’s microbe, and they will still do many bitter things in the country.