The meaning of the surname Preobrazhensky is a dog's heart. Dog's heart. What is the meaning of the “speaking” names of the characters in the context of the story?

S. Ioffe. Secret writing in “Heart of a Dog”

“Published as a matter of discussion.”

Let’s imagine that we are writers, we live in Moscow, it’s March 1925, and we need to come up with satirical surname for Stalin, One of us suggested the surname “Chugunkin”. Not noble steel, but black, rough cast iron.

Everyone was happy, but in our company was the first Bulgakov scholar, a great friend of Bulgakov, who said that Mikhail Afanasyevich had recently written a memoir satire “ dog's heart", in which Stalin is the most important character. And he was named Chugunkin.

Not only the Bulgakov scholar in our company was familiar with Bulgakov’s satire; Several other avid readers have already read it in manuscript. Everyone unanimously declared that there was no smell of Stalin in Bulgakov’s “Heart of a Dog,” that Chugunkin was an artistic image of a tavern balalaika player, some of whose organs, when he died, were used by Professor Preobrazhensky to transplant the dog Sharik.

The Bulgakov scholar got a little excited and stated that not only Stalin is camouflaged in “Heart of a Dog” in such a transparent way, with the help of the telling surname “Chugunkin,” but another famous figure is also covered with a completely transparent first and surname. Maid Zina Bunina is Grigory Evseevich Zinoviev, member of the Politburo, Chairman of the Comintern and Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet: Zina-Zinoviev. The surname “Bunin” is connected with the fact that “Zinoviev” is a pseudonym, and Grigory Evseevich’s real surname is Apfelbaum. Apfelbaum, as we know, means “apple tree” in German; Bunin has a famous story “Antonov Apples”, hence the surname for Zinoviev - Bunin.

Avid readers barely allowed the Bulgakov scholar to finish, accusing him of excessive imagination and reminding him that Zina is a girl, and Zinoviev is a man, and besides, Zina is the maid and nurse of the famous surgeon professor Preobrazhensky, and not a member of the Politburo, and so on.

The Bulgakov scholar was offended by this criticism and stated that, as he himself guessed and as Bulgakov confirmed to him, Preobrazhensky is Lenin, who transformed Russia from a monarchy into God knows what; his assistant Dr. Bormental - Lev Davydovich Trotsky-Bronstein, member of the Politburo, Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, People's Commissar for Military Affairs, organizer of the October coup and leader of the Red Army in the Civil War; the cunning, vindictive, evil sycophantic dog Sharik is also Stalin, like Chugunkin, but in a different form and at a different time; and Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov, the result of Preobrazhensky’s experimental operation to transplant the gonads and Chugunkin’s pituitary gland to the mongrel Sharik - also Stalin, already in the third incarnation, when he was elected general secretary of the RCP (b) (secretaries write a lot, “polygraph” in Greek “write a lot” ").

Meanwhile, the Bulgakov scholar could no longer be stopped. He argued that Bulgakov writes all his works in such a secret manner, creating a satirical-memoir picture of his time. With many philological and historical details, the Bulgakov scholar proved that Preobrazhensky’s cook Daria is the famous first chief of the Cheka F. E. Dzerzhinsky (and his name was chosen this way because in the name “Daria” and in the surname “Dzerzhinsky” there are “d” and “ p”, as in “tear, rip off”) that the chairman of the house committee Shvonder is Lev Borisovich

Kamenev-Rosenfeld member of the Politburo, Chairman of the Moscow Soviet, Lenin's deputy in the Council of People's Commissars (again there were explanations why Kamenev-Rosenfeld was given the surname Shvonder), that the owl that the cunning and evil licking dog Sharik loved to scold so much is the owl-like Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, which Comrade Stalin loved to vilify so much...

But let's try to cool down from the imaginary game of 1925. Let's remember what we know about “Heart of a Dog.” Bulgakov began writing “The Heart of a Dog” in January 1925; on February 14, some version was already ready, which he read to N. S. Angarsky, a Leninist party member with pre-revolutionary experience, editor of the almanac “Nedra”, in which Bulgakov published “ Fatal eggs" (The plot of "Fatal Eggs" is remarkably similar to "Heart of a Dog", there are also echoes: in "Fatal Eggs" Persikov invented a red ray, the same ray is mentioned in "Heart of a Dog" as a punishment that will overtake Preobrazhensky; Preobrazhensky lives in an apartment with Persian carpets: Persikov-Persian.)

In March 1925, “Heart of a Dog” was published in the almanac. Attempts to get it past the censors were unsuccessful. Moreover, in the summer of 1926, GPU agents came to search Bulgakov, the manuscript of “Heart of a Dog” was taken from him, and after a few years it was returned with great difficulty thanks to the assistance of Gorky. After the search, it seems that Bulgakov himself was taken to the Lubyanka and interrogated.

A copy of “Heart of a Dog”, given to Angarsky, was preserved in his archive with the inscription, clearly in case of unpleasant questions: “This thing is not of great value either in design or in artistic execution.”

In 1926, the Moscow Art Theater, which was already rehearsing a play called “Days of the Turbins,” offered Bulgakov to stage “Heart of a Dog,” but censorship intervened here too.

Gone long years. In 1968, this work was published twice in the West in Russian. Then Bulgakov’s widow Elena Sergeevna came to Paris to visit his relatives. She brought back the edited manuscript, which was published by YMCA-Press in 1969. This edition is considered canonical. In the Soviet Union, until 1987, “Heart of a Dog” was never published. The content of the work boils down to the fact that the professor-surgeon Preobrazhensky, who is involved in transplanting the gonads of monkeys to patients for rejuvenation, decides to experimentally transplant the gonads and pituitary gland of a 25-year-old man into a two-year-old dog “to clarify the question of the survival of the pituitary gland, and in the future, its influence on rejuvenation of the human body." Rejuvenation failed, received new person, preserving the worst traits of the dog and the person whose organs were transplanted. The new creature lives in the professor’s apartment and with his impudence, bad manners, alcoholism, thievery, and hooligan aggressiveness makes the professor’s life completely unbearable. In the fight, the professor's assistant appears to kill a laboratory creature. The professor is even accused of murder, but he unexpectedly produces a dog with human signs disappearing before our eyes.

Already in this presentation two oddities are visible. First: why, in order to clarify the issue of human rejuvenation, is it necessary to take a young two-year-old dog and transplant into him the organs of a young 25-year-old man? The second oddity: it remains unclear whether the dog-man was killed or whether the professor and his assistant transplanted the preserved gonads and pituitary gland of a dog into the monster, returning him to a dog state. However, these two oddities are not the only ones in “The Heart of a Dog.” Bulgakov scholar also said that the relationship between native speakers

surnames - in terms of allusion - this is the relationship between Lenin and Stalin since 1917, and maybe even earlier.

Lenin-Preobrazhensky first brought Stalin-Sharik closer, hoping to rejuvenate and renew the circle of people on whom he relied. Old comrades were either actively against him (Kamenev-Shvonder), or prone to hesitation and not large enough as individuals (Zinoviev-Zina and Dzerzhinsky-Daria). But, cleverly maneuvering, Stalin-Shaarik-Chugunkin-Sharikov became close to Kamenev-Shvonder, Zinoviev-Zina, Dzerzhinsky-Daria, as a result of which Lenin had to call his long-time rival, Trotsky-Bormenthal, for help. Together they managed to win a temporary victory over Stalin-Sharikov. It can be assumed that at the end of “Heart of a Dog,” written in January-March 1925, we're talking about about the last months of activity of Preobrazhensky-Lenin, until March 10, 1923, in which Sharik-Stalin was quite firmly entrenched in Prechistensky-Kremlin apartment of Preobrazhensky-Lenin.

But in the text of “Heart of a Dog” there are other oddities besides the similarity with political events of that time, in which the intellectual Bulgakov could rather be on the side of “people with a university education,” Preobrazhensky-Lenin and Bormental-Trotsky, than on the side of the criminal Sharik-Chugunkin-Sharikov-Stalin.

So, it is strange that before meeting Professor Preobrazhensky, a lover of the opera “Aida,” the dog Sharik had already met some kind of grimza who sings “dear Aida” in a meadow under the moonlight. It seems that this grymza and Preobrazhensky are one person, Lenin. The aria perhaps hints at Lenin’s affair with Inessa Armand (the first and last letters of the first and last name “Inessa Armand” are included in the word “Aida”), but Sharik’s earlier acquaintance with Preobrazhensky fits perfectly into Stalin’s long-standing acquaintance with Lenin - long before how Lenin decided to bring Stalin closer to him in 1921.

Another oddity is the typist Vasnetsova, who first appears in front of the dog Sharik, and he knows absolutely everything about her party lover-chairman, down to the smallest bed details. At the same time, the typist tries to caress Sharik. And later, after Sharik turned into Sharikov, the head of the MKH subdepartment (Moscow Communal Economy, i.e., communist economy, secretariat of the Central Committee), he appears with his mistress, the same typist. From which it follows that the dog Sharik-Stalin, also known as Sharikov-Stalin, has known the typist for a long time and that the lover-chairman is also Stalin.

Vasnetsova's typist is MX typist Olga Sergeevna Bokshanskaya (née Nyurenberg), secretary of Nemirovich-Danchenko, elder sister of Elena Sergeyevna Nyurenberg-Shilovskaya-Bulgakova, the last of Bulgakov's three wives. She is Toropetskaya (that is, she does everything quickly) in “Notes of a Dead Man” (“Theatrical Novel”), whom Ivan Vasilyevich (Stanislavsky) was so afraid of. Born in Riga in 1891 in the family of a tax inspector and theatergoer. In 1909, the family moved to St. Petersburg, and in 1916 O.S. moved to Moscow. In August 1919, she began working at the Moscow Art Theater as a typist. In 1921 she married a former officer of the tsarist army who served in the Red Army. The marriage soon broke up; Bokshansky, it seems, was familiar with Lenin and Stalin.

O. S. Bokshanskaya herself, probably at the Moscow Art Theater, met Stalin, then already married to Nadezhda Alliluyeva, and became his mistress.

Arriving in Moscow in September 1921, Bulgakov made many useful acquaintances, among them with Bokshanskaya, whose romance with Stalin was on the wane or had already ended. Stalin, having broken ties with Bokshanskaya, did not end his friendly relations with her; she was a woman of great intelligence and charm. Bokshanskaya lived with her younger sister Elena Sergeevna Nuremberg. Bulgakov himself became Bokshanskaya’s lover (he was then married to Tatyana Lappa), and through her he met Stalin. At Bokshanskaya, Bulgakov also met his future, last and third wife, E. S. Nurenberg, before marrying Bulgakov, Shilovskaya.

Bokshanskaya contributed literary career Bulgakov. It can be assumed that she helped Bulgakov with the magazine publication of “The White Guard”, that she advised him to start remaking “The White Guard” into the play “Days of the Turbins” before Bulgakov received an official offer from MX Ta to stage the novel.

Later between the sisters there was serious conflict because of Bulgakov, but it ended with Bokshanskaya remaining Bulgakov’s friend. She read everything that Bulgakov wrote - she had the talent of a critic and editor. She reprinted all his works. But the main thing is that in intelligence and character she was Elena Sergeevna’s true older sister. And without Elena Sergeevna, we might even now know as much about Bulgakov as we knew in the 50s, that is, almost nothing. In fact, we need to talk about two sisters in the life and fate of Bulgakov. Fortunately for us, Bulgakov himself took sufficient care of this in his secret writings.

In the 30s, Bokshanskaya married the actor of the Moscow Art Theater Kaluzhsky.” In the Committee for the Award of Stalin Prizes, created on the eve of the war, the first chairman of which was Nemirovich-Danchenko, she was a secretary.

Bokshanskaya enjoyed great influence at the Moscow Art Theater. Her relationship with Stalin was probably never a secret for many Muscovites, one way or another close to the Kremlin and MX Tu. She died in Moscow on May 3, 1948. The Moscow Art Theater yearbook dedicated a large obituary article to her. Obituaries were also published in Moscow newspapers.

In the scientific literature about Bulgakov’s “Heart of a Dog,” the allegorical allusive plan of this work is not excluded, although no one has studied the speaking surnames and, in general, allegorically speaking linguistic signs. Yes, Prof. Ellendea Proffer, leading expert on Bulgakov, author of many articles and big book about him, the publisher and editor of the 10-volume collected works of Bulgakov in Russian in the USA, in the preface to volume 3, where “Heart of a Dog” is printed, comes to the following conclusion: “The allegory with which he (Bulgakov. - S.I. .) has a very delicate matter. In the image of a brilliant surgeon undertaking a risky operation, it is easy to recognize Lenin as a representative of the intelligentsia with his characteristic scholarly air. And it is difficult to doubt that Sharik, this charming and original dog, represents a certain type of narrow-minded Russian worker or peasant, whom the Bolshevik revolution turned into the vile Sharikov. Heredity makes Sharikov what he is - no environment, be it communist or any other, can change him.”

As the reader has already guessed, I am not going to argue with the fact that Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky is Lenin. Moreover, I believe that not only the last name, but also the first and patronymic names of the professor are telling. “Philip” in Greek means “horse lover,” that is, a lover of riding horses, driving horses, hence the word “ruler.” And “Philip Philipovich” is a doubly ruler who has a passion for political power deep in the blood. That's how it was

political ambitious Lenin. So F. F. Preobrazhensky is the squared ruler and transformer Lenin. Preobrazhensky’s counter-revolutionary remarks, his dislike for the working class, etc., are the exact meaning of Lenin’s statements in his printed works recent years, which says that the proletariat did not live up to the hopes of the party and the party will lead the country on its own. Five years after the October Revolution, the revolutionary Lenin turned into a counter-revolutionary evolutionist, a supporter of education and culture.

Let's note one important feature in the analysis of E. Proffer. She is absolutely right in pointing out that Bulgakov is familiar with the art of saying names: Preobrazhensky is a transformer. It is a pity that “Preobrazhensky” is the only example of her analysis of speaking linguistic signs in “Heart of a Dog.”

But if Bulgakov believed that the Shariki-Chugunkins-Sharikovs, the new ruling class of Russia, were a cross between a mongrel dog and a clever criminal, then could he hope to get such a thing through censorship? Could he so openly and frivolously oppose the sacred concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat? Bulgakov could have allowed Preobrazhensky to confront, which he did, but Bulgakov himself could hardly have been so frivolous in the seventh year of Soviet power and the Cheka.

And if this was the meaning of “Heart of a Dog,” then how could Angarsky, a Leninist party member with pre-revolutionary experience, try to publish such a work? I do not want to say that Lenin, Angarsky and many other Bolshevik intellectuals could not think so about the Soviet nominees from the workers and peasants. They thought even worse about these Pugachevites; it is no coincidence that Preobrazhensky, in a conversation about Sharikov, repeats the word “criminalism.” But it is unlikely that they could express their opinion so openly.

This means that both Bulgakov and Angarsky had a different interpretation of “Heart of a Dog.” And for this interpretation they hoped to find understanding and sympathy from the censors, as they found it with “Fatal Eggs.”

Let's try to formulate this understanding. In the struggle for power in Soviet Russia 192-22 there were only three contenders: Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, two intellectuals and the son of a drunken shoemaker, a half-educated seminarian with a very modest education, a criminal type. At the end of 1922 - beginning of 1923, the sick Lenin, although he tried to do something, wrote letters from Gorki, but actually left the game. Let us remember Preobrazhensky at the end of “The Heart of a Dog,” who turned gray, suffered a deep faint from which he almost died (that is, a blow, Bulgakov writes: “I hit my head when I fell”), but still with slippery gloves he takes out the brains from the vessels . This is Lenin, trying by any means, even slippery ones, to regain what was lost, to drive Sharik-Stalin out of his Kremlin-Prechistenka apartment. Without Lenin, Angarsky and Bulgakov had to choose between Stalin and Trotsky.

There is no doubt that the Jew by patronymic and surname Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental is Trotsky-Bronstein, although the surname, first name and patronymic of Bulgakov’s Trotsky are not as straightforward as those of Stalin-Chugunkin and Zinoviev-Zina. However, his surname "Bormenthal" consists of two parts: "Bormen-", which resembles "Bron-" from real name Trotsky (Bronstein), and “-tal”, which contains “t” and “l”, i.e. the initials of the pseudonym and name of L. Trotsky. The name from which Bormental's patronymic is derived - "Arnold" - ends with the letters "l" and "d", i.e., the initials of the name and patronymic of L. D. Trotsky. The name “Ivan” is the name of John the Baptist, which in the Bolshevik calendar was Trotsky, who headed the Petrograd Workers’ Council

deputies in the revolution of 1905 (Lenin’s role in this revolution was much more modest) and organized the October revolution for Lenin. Let us note that Bulgakov’s Bormental is a rather sympathetic figure. Let us only note that Bulgakov’s attitude towards Trotsky was different in different years. Thus, he was introduced in “The Diaboliad” under the name of the passive Jan Sobieski, in “Fatal Eggs” under the name of the impudent journalist Bronsky, in “The Master and Margarita” - under the name of the stupid Likhodeev.

Of course, among non-party and party intellectuals, among the Bulgakovs and Angarskys, who were interested in Kremlin secrets and the future of Russia, there were many opponents of Trotsky, but unlike the Kamenevs and Zinovievs, who believed that Stalin would bark and growl at their political opponents, and they would to rule Russia, the Bulgakovs and Angarskys understood the stupidity of the political line of Kamenev and Zinoviev. No wonder Preobrazhensky-Lenin says that all that remains of Shvonder will be horns and legs. Having the criminal Stalin-Sharik-Chugunkin-Sharikov as the owner of the Kremlin-Prechistensk apartment was a scary prospect.

Naturally, Bulgakov and Angarsky could harbor some illusions about the outcome of Trotsky’s political struggle with Stalin. Lenin’s “Testament” and the postscript to it about Stalin seemed to them to be a particularly strong trump card. When publishing “The Heart of a Dog,” they hoped for the assistance of censors oriented towards Trotsky. But events clearly did not develop in Trotsky’s favor, which is why Bulgakov earlier, and Angarsky a little later, renounced “Heart of a Dog.” Bulgakov, in particular, did not write a tearful letter to the censorship, as Angarsky advised him, and probably reacted coolly to the Moscow Art Theater's proposal to write a dramatization. “The Heart of a Dog” was written in a code too simple for contemporaries to break spears over.

The fact that Sharik is Stalin is evidenced not only by the surname “Chugunkin”. Sharik is a small ball, but Stalin was vertically challenged and of very humble, “mongrel” origin. It is remarkable that Bulgakov gives the most detailed information in the world memoir literature description of Stalin's appearance and personality. Let us present some details of this description in the sequence in which they are given by Bulgakov.

“How much ... fildepers she (typist Vasnetsova-Bokshanskaya, Stalin’s mistress. - S.I.) must endure. After all, he does not expose her in any ordinary way, but exposes her to French love”; “I’m tired of my Matryona (the wife of Chairman Stalin. - S.I.), I’m tired of flannel pants, now my time has come. I am now the chairman, and no matter how much I steal, it’s all on the female body, on cancerous cervixes, on Abrau-Durso. Because I was hungry enough when I was young*..”; “Kissed on the boot” (Preobrazhensky); “Let me lick the boot” (Preobrazhensky); “If I... start urinating past the toilet...” (Preobrazhensky, hinting at Sharikov); “The dog stood (in front of Preobrazhensky) on hind legs and chewed his jacket, the dog studied Philip Philipovich’s call... and flew out barking to meet him in the hallway”; “suck-up dog”, “scoundrel”, “had some secret to win people’s hearts”; “affectionate, although cunning”; “the forehead is sloping and low”; “...gives the impression of a small and poorly built man”; “His smile is unpleasant and as if artificial”; “I swore (swearing). This swearing is methodical, continuous” (Stalin was a great expert in Russian and Georgian swearing); “He eats herring with enthusiasm” (in the 30s, Stalin was prescribed special varieties of herring from Scandinavia); “conditional hard labor for 15 years” (before his death at the age of 25, Chugunkin commits a crime for which he should have received 15 years of hard labor, but he turned out and the sentence was suspended. How not to remember the famous robbery of the Tiflis bank, when

Stalin was a little over 25 years old); “small head”; “a person... of unattractive appearance. The hair... on my head... was coarse... and my face was covered with unshaven fluff. The forehead was striking in its small height. A thick head brush began almost directly above the black tassels of scattered eyebrows”; “he looked with dull eyes”; “His voice was extraordinary, dull and at the same time booming”; "Savage! ... I have positively never seen a more impudent creature than you” (Preobrazhensky); “You stand at the lowest stage of development... you are still a nascent, mentally weak creature, all your actions are purely bestial, and you... allow yourself, with a completely unbearable swagger, to give some advice of cosmic proportions and cosmic stupidity ..." (Preobrazhensky); “In the words (of Preobrazhensky about Sharikov) the word “criminalism” was heard several times.

The name of Chugunkin-Sharik-Sharikov-Stalin is Klim Chugunkin. As you know, that was the name of Klim Voroshilov, in those years one of the prominent figures of the Red Army. It was on the troops led by Voroshilov and Budyonny that Stalin relied in his fight against Lenin. As is known, the command staff of the Red Army consisted, on the one hand, of the Voroshilovs, Budyonnys, Chapaevs, Dybenkos, i.e., from the workers and peasants of the Pugachev freemen, and on the other, from former tsarist officers. Since the 1919 debate about military specialists, Lenin and Trotsky relied on former officers, and Stalin on the Pugachevites. At the decisive moment of the struggle between Lenin and Stalin, the Pugachevites turned out to be stronger than the officers.

The final oddity of “Heart of a Dog” can now be explained. Bormenthal seemed to have strangled Sharik-Sharikov, but he turned out to be alive and well, firmly settled in Preobrazhensky’s apartment, of whom a shadow of his former self remained; moreover, Bormenthal was not visible in the apartment. The explanation is simple. Attempts by Lenin and Trotsky to stop Stalin, who was striving for power, were crowned with temporary success, but then Lenin and Trotsky were defeated, and Stalin settled in the Kremlin.

The scene in which Sharik pulled Bormental's leg is a hint at the famous conflict between Trotsky and Stalin during civil war in 1919. Trotsky's commander-in-chief was Colonel of the Tsarist Army I. I. Vatsetis. Stalin sought the appointment of his then protege S.S. Kamenev, also a colonel in the tsarist army, to this post. When Lenin gave in to Stalin, Trotsky resigned. But Lenin persuaded him to refuse to resign. So Stalin-Sharik pulled Trotsky-Bormenthal by the leg, so Trotsky had to swallow the pill.

Sharikov’s hiring as head of a subdepartment of the Moscow Public Utilities is, of course, Stalin’s appointment to the post of General Secretary of the RCP (b) on April 3, 1921. It was unclear to historians on whose initiative the appointment took place. Stalin later claimed, of course, that it happened on Lenin’s initiative. The issue has been discussed by historians without concrete results. Bulgakov tells us quite unequivocally that the appointment of Sharikov-Stalin took place on the initiative of Shvonder-Kamenev without the knowledge of Preobrazhensky-Lenin.

Why Zinaida Bunina - Zinoviev-Apfelbaum, we have already said. The name for her patronymic, “Prokofievna,” was not chosen by chance. “Prokofy” means “persistent, purposeful”: this could then be considered Zinoviev, who had ambitious plans. Zina is a maid, sometimes involved in operations by Preobrazhensky, but afraid of blood. As a political figure, Zinoviev could not be compared with Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. Zina-Zinoviev is nothing more than a servant, sometimes opposed to Sharik-Stalin, sometimes for him.

It has already been said above that Dzerzhinsky is the cook Daria Petrovna Ivanova. Her middle and last names are common, run-of-the-mill names. In the Bolshevik leadership under Lenin, Dzerzhinsky was always second class; he was never elected to the Politburo. We are even more convinced that Daria - Dzerzhinsky, looking into Daria Petrovna’s kitchen, where she “like a furious executioner” “with a sharp narrow knife ... cut off the heads and paws of helpless hazel grouse”, “tore the meat off the bones”; “the damper bounced back with thunder, revealing a terrible hell”; her “face... burned with torment and passion, everything except her deathly nose.” After this, one cannot help but understand that the kitchen is Lubyanka, and the cook is Iron Felix.

By the way, Daria-Dzerzhinsky’s deathly nose is by no means a figment of Bulgakov’s creative imagination. Robert Payne, the author of a book about Lenin, describing Dzerzhinsky’s appearance, speaks of “bloodless wings of the nose.” The surname “Vasnetsova” was given to Olga Bokshanskaya in honor of famous artist V. M. Vasnetsov and his painting “Alyonushka”. The name “Alyonushka” has something in common with “Olga”.

Preobrazhensky’s large apartment on Prechistenka, which he does not allow Shvonder-Kamenev to move into, but in which Sharik-Chugunkin-Sharikov-Stalin, Bormental-Trotsky, Zina-Zinoviev and Daria-Dzerzhinsky already live, is Lenin’s Kremlin residence, into which he agrees to admit only those who are content with a little power.

A stuffed owl with glass eyes, stuffed with red rags that smell of mothballs - Krupskaya with gray glass eyes bulging from Graves' disease, stuffed with communist ideology.

Portrait of Professor Mechnikov, a specialist in longevity, Preobrazhensky's teacher - a portrait of Marx, Lenin's teacher. The dog Sharik tore the portrait of Mechnikov from the wall and smashed it, i.e. Stalin neglected the teachings of Marx. But it is characteristic that Preobrazhensky does not give the order to glaze the portrait again; Lenin no longer needs Marx.

Since we are talking about the Marxist interests of the characters in “Heart of a Dog,” we must remember the unexpected interest for Sharikov, but natural for Stalin, in the correspondence between Engels and Kautsky, in which the illiterate Marxist Stalin understood nothing. Preobrazhensky-Lenin ordered to burn the correspondence of Kautsky, whom Lenin strongly scolded during these years (Preobrazhensky calls him a devil),

Sharikov-Stalin calls Zina-Zinovieva a social servant of Preobrazhensky-Lenin, and Preobrazhensky-Lenin himself a Menshevik. Sharikov-Stalin hints at the secret alliance of Preobrazhensky-Lenin and Bor-mental-Trotsky against him: Bormental, “secretly not registered, lives in his (Preobrazhensky - S.I.) apartment.” Bormental-Trotsky recalls his first meeting with Preobrazhensky-Lenin: he came to him as a half-starved student (Trotsky as a young man came to the emigrant Lenin’s apartment in London and he treated him very warmly).

It is easy to understand in which direction one should look for “who is who” among Professor Preobrazhensky’s patients. In the young old woman it is not difficult to identify Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (born 1872). She was the first People's Commissar of State Charity, a prominent party member, and a diplomat. Her young lover Moritz, cheating on her left and right, is the famous sailor Dybenko, an army commander from the breed of illiterate Budyonnys and Voroshilovs (born 1889).

A fat and tall man in military uniform, who informed Preobrazhensky-Lenin about the intrigues of Sharikov-Stalin, - S. S. Kamenev, colonel of the tsarist army, in 1919-1924 - commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the republic.

House manager Shvonder, a fierce and caustic opponent of Preobrazhensky, is L. B. Kamenev-Rosenfeld, Chairman of the Mossovet (hence "house manager"). "Rosenfeld" in German means "field of roses", and "Schwand" means "hillside". Bulgakov simultaneously hints at the semantic similarity of the words “field” and “hill” and at Kamenev’s political bias. Historians know that Kamenev. for a long time supported Stalin, but relations between him and Lenin looked neutral. Bulgakov the historian reveals to us the exceptional bitterness between the two “partai-genossen”.

Two of Shvonder's companions are easily identified. The blond man in the hat is P.K. Sternberg (born 1865), a prominent Bolshevik, party member since 1905, professor-astronomer. His mistress Vyazemskaya is V.N. Yakovleva (born 1884, 19 years difference), secretary of the MK at that time, party member since 1904, etc. They met when Yakovleva was a student and Sternberg was a professor at Moscow University. She was a very beautiful woman, a real Russian beauty. Such beauties were depicted on Vyazemsk gingerbread, hence her surname Vyazemskaya.

If you wish, it is not difficult to find out the other two visitors of Preobrazhensky-Lenin: you need to take periodicals of that time and look among the members of the Moscow Party Committee. And in general, turning to periodicals could help establish many details: who was the cat with the blue bow with whom Sharikov-Stalin fought; who is an old woman in a polka dot skirt; who is the flea that Sharikov-Stalin caught under his arm, etc.

All these questions, i.e., clarification of details and details, no matter how important they are for historians, were not raised here by me. The main task now, in my opinion, is the formulation of the question itself. Literary scholars and historians must understand that it is not easy before us piece of art Bulgakov, but a whole memoir satirical cycle, which did not include only feuilletons. The main task now is to give each secret written work of Bulgakov a primary decoding.

The work of Mikhail Bulgakov was initially destined for enchanting popularity throughout the world. You can talk about this quite freely, without fear of exaggeration - just visit, for example, the production of the play “Love Letters to Stalin”, authored by the Spaniard Juan Mayorga, or watch the foreign film “Heart of a Dog”, in which the role of Professor Preobrazhensky is played by Max von Zyudov. As for Bulgakov’s popularity in the post-Soviet space, it’s even inconvenient to talk about it: literally every young lady who considers herself a creative and spiritual person always mentions “The Master and Margarita” as one of her favorite books. We will not try to find the reasons for such a dizzying success Soviet writer. Here we are more interested in the consequences of Bulgakov’s popularity, and, as the most important of these, we can name the transformation of his literary heritage V " common place» world and, in particular, Russian culture. The accents that the author placed in his works have already dulled, and everyone has become accustomed to their sharp taste. It means that modern reader rarely sees anything new on the pages of Bulgakov’s prose. Martin Heidegger called this way of understanding reality “single-track thinking,” connecting this metaphor with the technocratic nature of society in recent decades. Instead of inquisitively following the truth in its ambiguity along winding paths, a person proudly drives past meanings and truths, rushing towards the only side of life that he is accustomed to seeing. But the peculiarity and value of truth lies in its ambiguity, which it tries in every possible way to level and discredit modern civilization with her practicality and ready-made answers to everything. This article is an attempt to touch upon an unusual side for the reader of Bulgakov’s story “The Heart of a Dog.”

But in order to talk about the unusual, you need to briefly define the familiar. Of course, the most popular and effective is the interpretation of the story as political satire. They say that Preobrazhensky and Bormental are the intelligentsia who allowed the mob to feel their human rights, and thereby handed over society to the power of this mob. Sometimes direct correspondences are made between the heroes of the story and Russian revolutionaries: Preobrazhensky - Lenin, Bormental - Trotsky, Sharikov - Stalin, etc. (An excellent example of this approach is the article by S. Ioffe). Of course, this approach has grounds, since the author himself expressed similar counter-revolutionary ideas in his other works, condemning the Bolsheviks’ attempt to equalize all classes of Russia. On the other side, artistic images, which Bulgakov uses, allow us to consider the events he described from a symbolic perspective. The central one story line the story - transformation - makes it possible to see in the text not only satire, but also a classic Western legend about alchemical work, the heroes of which are dressed in modern costumes for Bulgakov and bear names familiar to Russian ears, while remaining elements of the same symbolic system. The arguments given below will enable the reader to judge the validity of such a claim.

First of all, we should start with the main character - Professor Preobrazhensky. The surname of this man is at least ambiguous; it cleverly refers us both to the essential Transfiguration of Christ and to the external transformation carried out in the laboratory by alchemists. Indeed, in alchemical literature, the very image of Christ often replaced gold (also interpreted symbolically as the goal of the Work, and not as a specific metal), and the Transfiguration of Christ acted as a symbol of the transformation of a base metal into a noble one. However, it is known that many alchemists, seeking to make money and taking their treatises too literally, simply coated lead coins with an amalgam of gold and thus replaced the transformation of the spirit with the transformation of appearance. The Russian word “heart” has not only an anatomical meaning, but initially means “middle”, the semantic center - therefore the anatomical heart, as central authority body is called the “heart”. In this context, the counterfeit of unscrupulous alchemists retains its lead heart, but still looks like gold. Here it is important to recall one of Dr. Bormental’s notes made during the “humanization” of Sharik: “From now on, the mysterious function of the pituitary gland - a cerebral appendage - has been explained. It defines the human form. Its hormones can be called the most important in the body - hormones of appearance. A new area opens up in science: without any retort of Faust, a homunculus was created. The surgeon's scalpel brought to life a new human unit. Professor Preobrazhensky, you are a creator!” . Already here there is a paralogism, an unconscious substitution of concepts: the appearance does not at all determine the essence of the creature, therefore Preobrazhensky actually superimposed the appearance of a man on the heart of a dog, without creating anything new, but only thus disguising a drunkard and troublemaker under the guise of a transformed dog (more on this later stated below). Moreover, Sharik turned into a man completely by accident, while the goal of Preobrazhensky’s experiment was to rejuvenate the experimental dog - however, at the same time, the accidental result of the work is presented as a great achievement: in this respect, the professor resembles Berthold Schwartz, who accidentally invented gunpowder in searching for the alchemical key to gold. So, the professor is not a creator at all.

Second important detail The above quote is a comparison of Preobrazhensky with Faust. It would seem that this comparison is made in the form of opposition, but this form does not change the essence of the artistic technique. Further in the text there is a direct comparison: “He (Preobrazhensky) burned the second cigar for a long time, completely chewing its end and, finally, completely alone, green-colored, like a gray-haired Faust, he exclaimed: by God, I think I’ll make up my mind.” Bulgakov seems to be constantly trying to quietly convince the reader that his professor is a modern Faust, who was also an alchemist and sorcerer.

In what the main problem Faust? The fact is that “two souls” live in his body: he “demands stars from the sky as a reward, and the best pleasures from the earth, and his soul will never be in peace, no matter what his search leads to,” the Lord tells Mephistopheles in the prologue of Goethe's tragedy. Translated into Christian terminology, Faustus is a fornicator. Fornication here must be understood broadly, as wandering of the spirit, as the inability to choose one’s own path and follow it. Heidegger was mentioned earlier with his metaphor of technocratic thinking as driving on a single track. By fornication we can understand the other extreme, which is also destructive for the human spirit: if one-track thinking is too definite and purposeful, then the movement of the fornicator has no limits at all, and therefore no path. For example, we can recall the image of the Will-o'-the-wisp from Goethe's Faust: a demonic light that lures travelers into swamps at night and leads Mephistopheles and Faust to the Brocken on Walpurgis Night. In fact, all life path Fausta is wandering from one extreme to another, from temptation to temptation: “I mastered theology, pored over philosophy, studied jurisprudence and studied medicine, but I, at the same time, was and remains a fool.” After all, it is with these words that the “Scene in the Gothic Room” begins, when the reader first meets Faust, who cannot find his path, his destiny, and therefore turns to magic and, as a result, sells it to the devil (by the way, who appeared to him in the form of a dog) soul. Faust's wanderings, his internal uncertainty (which is complemented by external rejuvenation - as if Bulgakov's professor tried) - this is the essence of his tragedy, which ends only with the death and salvation of the fornicator and warlock by the angels of God.

Professor Preobrazhensky, whose wanderings began after meeting with street dog, whom he brings home (exactly as Faust brings the poodle Mephistopheles), also cannot find his way, remaining the personification of spiritual fornication until the very end of the story. The highest expression of his wanderings is the dinner scene (when Sharik is still in the form of a dog). So, the professor says: “Food, Ivan Arnoldovich, is a tricky thing. You need to be able to eat, and just imagine, most people don’t know how to do this at all. You need to not only know what to eat, but also when and how. (Philip Philipovich shook his spoon meaningfully.) And what can I say? Yes, sir. If you care about your digestion, here’s some good advice: don’t talk about Bolshevism and medicine at dinner.” Literally immediately he notices that he is giving medical advice to his famulus Wagner-Bormenthal at dinner, and realizes: “Yes, sir. However, what am I! He himself started talking about medicine. Let's eat better." However, then Preobrazhensky hears the singing of Shvonder and his comrades, and begins to discuss the political situation in Russia, more and more scolding the Bolsheviks for the galoshes stolen during the revolution and for the devastation that is “in their heads.” What is the significance of this scene in the context of what was said earlier? It illustrates Professor Preobrazhensky’s inability to adhere to any one course, to behave in accordance with his own moral teachings. The dinner scene is a concentrated expression of the instability of Preobrazhensky's character, which he demonstrates throughout the story. For this reason, perhaps, the understanding of the story in terms of the collapse of the hopes of intellectual dreamers for the rise of other people to their level is not entirely justified - after all, Preobrazhensky initially knew and argued that equality between people does not exist. What could be more absurd: the old alchemist, who criticizes the Bolsheviks for the rise of the mob, is himself trying to turn a dog into a man. The grotesqueness of the situation shows the contradictory nature of the image of Transfiguration, which not only transforms, but itself is constantly transformed, while invariably remaining warm, if we use the symbolic language of Revelation from John the Theologian (Rev. 3:15-16).

It was said earlier that Preobrazhensky puts the appearance of a person on a dog’s heart, but by doing this he disguises precisely a worthless person under a completely tolerable dog. In such a fraudulently complex creature of alchemical transformation lies, in fact, the problem of the failure of the revolution in Russia - they are trying to ennoble the base metal, but the worst subjugates the best. Indeed, if we start again with the names that Bulgakov gives to his heroes, we will notice that Klim Chugunkin has a “metal” surname, moreover, cast iron is an obviously base metal, and not even an independent (naturally existing) metal, but an alloy of ferrous metals ; the name Sharik can be considered in connection with the top layer of gold, which covers the base metal, since etymologically the word “ball” is associated with paint; The word “ball” still retains the meaning of the upper layer, for example, in the Ukrainian language. So, although Preobrazhensky tried to transform Chugunkin with Sharik, it was Sharikov who adopted the essence of Chugunkin, and the rejuvenation operation failed, for “They also do not pour new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the bottles burst, and the wine flows out, and the bottles are lost, but new wine is poured into new bottles, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:17; cf. Mark 2:22, Luke 5:37).

Realizing his mistake (“the whole horror is that he no longer has a dog’s heart, but a human one”), the professor reverses the operation, removing Sharikov’s human pituitary gland and seminal glands, thereby returning his experimental subject to a match between his heart and appearance. The alchemist demonstrates the change in his views in a conversation with Bormenthal: “You can, of course, graft the pituitary gland of Spinoza or some other such devil and make an extremely high-standing dog out of him. But what the hell, one wonders. Please explain to me why it is necessary to artificially fabricate Spinoza, when any woman can give birth to him at any time. After all, Madame Lomonosova gave birth to this famous one in Kholmogory. Doctor, humanity itself takes care of this and, in an evolutionary order, every year, persistently singling out all kinds of scum from the masses, creates dozens of outstanding geniuses who adorn Earth". The mention of Spinoza here is no coincidence: Professor Preobrazhensky, as a result of alchemical transformations of his spirit, achieves an understanding of the world through the prism of the pantheistic philosophy of Benedict Spinoza. After unsuccessful attempts fight with nature, the professor understands its superiority over his scientific research as the superiority of the natural over the artificial.

Preobrazhensky admits that it is much wiser to entrust oneself to fate than to arbitrarily try to create philosophers out of dogs (and rejuvenate people themselves!), because a person is not able to change the spirit, “heart”, “fate” of another creature at his own will - a dog will always have a heart canine, the essence of the Other will always remain incomprehensible. The only possibility for a person to realize his freedom lies in the so-called alchemy of the spirit, but not the alchemy of the body, that is, in an internal transformation that cannot be achieved surgically, that is, by violence against nature. It’s funny to admit, but at the very beginning the inconsistent professor was talking about the same thing: “You can’t do anything with terror with an animal, no matter what stage of development it is at. This is what I have asserted, am asserting, and will continue to assert. They are in vain to think that terror will help them." Let us remember that the alchemist Preobrazhensky said this when he took Sharik into his apartment - with the sole purpose - to commit the greatest violence against nature. It is in this vein of the professor’s spiritual fornication that the novel ends. Sharik wakes up and, suffering from a headache, sees his “benefactor” again at work. “The dog saw terrible things. Hands in slippery gloves important person immersed it in a vessel, took out the brains - a stubborn man, persistent, always achieving something, cutting, examining, squinting and singing: “To the sacred banks of the Nile...”. Of course, Sharik woke up and could examine Preobrazhensky’s work not immediately after his operation, but after a while. This says one thing: despairing after an obvious failure, the persistent professor took up his task again. Professor Preobrazhensky never became “Christ”, “Gold” - he remained in the field of “small work” aimed at transforming “metals”, but not his own soul.

So the eternally insane transformer of the Universe continues, singing an aria from “Aida” (also a kind of reference to alchemical practices, because even the word “alchemy” itself comes from Greek name Egypt - “Kemet”, “the black land of the Nile Delta” - those same “sacred shores”), disfigure the world and make unnecessary revolutions, achieving nothing by doing so, repenting of mistakes and again returning to the beginning of their path. Professor Preobrazhensky is Ouroboros, the serpent who bites its own tail (and the tempting serpent, at the same time), a symbol of evil infinity, circulus vitiosus.

Interpreted through the prism of alchemical symbolism, the story partially loses its satirical character associated with specific historical events, while acquiring universal significance for the history of the wanderings of the human spirit. This reading of “Heart of a Dog” is especially relevant today, when World culture, having adopted a postmodernist guise, moved as far as possible from its metaphysical foundations, from its “heart,” and man, feeling himself the ruler of the technocratic world, similarly opposed himself to nature as much as possible. Humanity still, and even more than ever, needs spiritual Transformation, renunciation of violence towards the world, and wise humility. “Man intends to take upon himself dominion over the whole Earth... but is man, as man in his former being, ready to take this dominion?” - asks Heidegger. Bulgakov's answer is definitely negative. As the author of “Heart of a Dog,” who experienced the horrors himself, teaches us coups d'etat and senseless unrest, any violence, no matter what guise it takes, only creates evil, since a person who is not internally ready for transformation will always be suppressed by its formless and therefore destructive, destructive side. From here we can return to the satirical reading of the story, removed and now supplemented with metaphysical symbolism: Sharik turns into the drunkard Chugunkin, pre-revolutionary Russia becomes the main producer of Murti-Binga pills in the twentieth century, as Czeslav Milosz subtly notes, and Ecumenical Professor Preobrazhensky leads in his “ obscene apartment" a new victim - and so on endlessly. This old “Faust” is not the Thrice Greatest Hermes, not the “divine transformer” (Deva Nahousha), but the greatest charlatan, another incarnation of Professor Woland, who came to Moscow to study the non-existent works of Herbert of Avrilak.

Immortal, cruel, powerful and indestructible, surrounded by his obedient retinue, the devil walks along the Moscow streets in exactly the same way as he walks through the Universe with God's connivance, confusing and tempting humanity, giving people what they, in their ignorance, crave and, perhaps, even repenting of his mistakes (as Dostoevsky’s devil does), but after a moment of weakness he again takes up his only business - the denial of divine creation. This is the metaphysical core of any violence, any revolution, any external transformations committed even with the most good purpose, because the gifts of the devil always carry within them the machinations of the Underworld.

LITERATURE

Budge E. A. U. Residents of the Nile Valley / Transl. from English A. Davydova. M.: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2009.
Bible. Books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments - M.: Publication of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1993. - 1372 p. http://krotov.info/lib_sec/13_m/il/osh_2.htm
Vasmer M. Etymological dictionary Russian language. In 4 vols. / Transl. with him. O. N. Trubacheva. M.: Progress, 1987.
Heidegger M. What is called thinking / Transl. with him. E. Sagetdinova. M.: Territory of the Future, 2006.
Shure E. Great Initiates: Essay on the Esotericism of Religions / Transl. from fr. E. Pisareva. Kaluga: Printing house of the Provincial Zemstvo Council, 1914.

_____________________________

Artamonov Alexander Alexandrovich

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 one can openly read harsh criticism Soviet power. 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.

There are only three main characters in “Heart of a Dog,” 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 - former nobles and the highest revolutionary officials who patronize him.

Preobrazhensky is a respectable, successful and self-confident person. The professor, 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. Bormental

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 doctor-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

What is the meaning of the “speaking” names of the characters in the context of the story?

The main character of the story is named Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky.

Philip" in Greek means "lover of horses", i.e. lover of riding horses, driving horses, hence - ruler. And “Philip Philipovich” is a doubly ruler, whose passion for political power is deep in his blood.

The professor's surname - Preobrazhensky - is also symbolic. Preobrazhensky performs the operation in the afternoon of December 23, and the humanization of the dog is completed on the night of January 7, since the last mention of his canine appearance in the observation diary kept by Bormental’s assistant is dated January 6. Thus, the entire process of turning a dog into a human covers the period from December 24 to January 6, from Catholic to Orthodox Christmas Eve. A Transfiguration is taking place, but not the Lord's. A new man, Sharikov, is born on the night of January 6th to 7th - Orthodox Christmas. But Poligraf Poligrafovich is not the incarnation of Christ, but the devil, who took his name in honor of a fictitious “saint” in the new Soviet “saints” that prescribe the celebration of Printer’s Day. Sharikov is, to some extent, a victim of printed products - books outlining Marxist dogmas, which Shvonder gave him to read. From there, the “new man” took away only the thesis of primitive egalitarianism - “take everything and divide it.” During his last quarrel with Preobrazhensky and Bormental, Sharikov’s connection with otherworldly forces is emphasized in every possible way: “Some unclean spirit possessed Poligraf Poligrafovich, obviously, death was already watching over him and fate stood behind him.

Sharikov himself invited his death. He raised left hand and showed Philip Philipovich a bitten pine cone with an unbearable cat smell. And then with his right hand, directed at the dangerous Bormental, he took a revolver out of his pocket.” Shish is the standing “hair” on the devil’s head. Sharikov’s hair is the same: “coarse, like bushes in an uprooted field.” Armed with a revolver, Poligraf Poligrafovich is a unique illustration of the famous saying of the Italian thinker Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527): “All armed prophets have won, but the unarmed ones have perished.” Here Sharikov is a parody of V.I. Lenina, L.D. Trotsky and other Bolsheviks, who ensured the triumph of their teachings in Russia by military force. By the way, the three volumes of the posthumous biography of Trotsky, written by his follower Isaac Deutscher (1906-1967), were called: “The Armed Prophet”, “The Disarmed Prophet”, “The Expelled Prophet” (1954-1963). Bulgakov's hero is not a prophet of God, but of the devil.

Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental is Jewish by patronymic and surname. His surname “Bormenthal” consists of two parts: “Bormen-”, which resembles “Bron-” from Trotsky’s real surname (Bronstein), and “-tal”, which contains “t” and “l”, i.e. initials of the pseudonym and name of L. Trotsky. The name from which Bormental's patronymic is derived - "Arnold" - ends with the letters "l" and "d", i.e., the initials of the first and patronymic L.D. Trotsky.

House manager Shvonder, a fierce and caustic opponent of Preobrazhensky, is L.B. Kamenev-Rozenfeld, Chairman of the Moscow City Council (hence the house manager). "Rosenfeld" in German means "field of roses", and "schwand" means "hillside". Bulgakov simultaneously hints at the semantic similarity of the words “field” and “hill” and at Kamenev’s political bias.

Two of Shvonder's companions are easily identified. Blonde in a hat - P.K. Sternberg (born 1865), prominent Bolshevik, party member since 1905, professor-astronomer. His mistress Vyazemskaya - V.N. Yakovleva (born 1884, 19 years difference), secretary of the Moscow Committee at that time, party member since 1904, etc. They met when Yakovleva was a student and Sternberg was a professor at Moscow University. She was a very beautiful woman, a real Russian beauty. Such beauties were depicted on Vyazemsk gingerbread, hence her surname Vyazemskaya.

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.

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

Characteristics of the main characters

Sharikov

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

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.

Dr. Bormental

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.

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.

Other heroes

Work test