Starting my discussions about Professor Preobrazhensky, the hero of the work “Dog’s Heart”, I would like to dwell on some facts of the biography of the author - Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasevich (05/15/1891 Kiev - 03/10/1940, Moscow), Russian writer, theater playwright and the director. All this in order to draw some parallels, which will largely unite the author and his imaginary hero.
A bit about the author’s biography
Bulgakov was born into the family of an associate professor at the Kiev Theological Academy, but he soon became a student of the medical faculty of Kiev University. In World War I, he worked as a front-line doctor. In the spring of 1918 he returned to Kiev, where he practiced as a private venereologist. In the civil war of 1919, Bulgakov was a military doctor of the Ukrainian military army, then the Armed forces of the south of Russia, the Red Cross, the Volunteer Army, etc. Having contracted typhus in 1920, he was treated in Vladikavkaz, and afterwards he woke up writing talent. He will write to his cousin that he finally understood: his job is to write.
Prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky
It is really possible to compare Bulgakov with the prototype of the protagonist, they have too much in common. However, it is believed that Preobrazhensky (professor) as an image was copied from Uncle Mikhail Afanasevich, the famous Moscow doctor, gynecologist N. M. Pokrovsky.
In 1926, the OGPU searched the writer, and as a result the manuscripts of “Dog’s Heart” and the diary were seized.
This story was dangerous for the writer in that it became a satire on the Soviet power of the 20-30s. The newly minted class of the proletariat is represented by heroes such as the Shvonder and the Sharikovs, who are absolutely far from the values of the destroyed tsarist Russia.
They are all opposed by Professor Preobrazhensky, whose quotes deserve special attention. This surgeon and scientist, who is the luminary of Russian science, appears for the first time at the moment when the dog, the future Sharikov, dies in the urban gateway - hungry and cold, with his side burnt. The professor appears in the most agonizing hours for the dog. The dog’s thoughts “voice” Preobrazhensky as a master of culture, with an intelligent beard and mustache, like that of French knights.
Experiment
The main business of Professor Preobrazhensky is to treat people, look for new ways to achieve longevity and effective means of rejuvenation. Of course, like any scientist, he could not live without experimentation. He picks up the dog, and at the same time, a plan is born in the doctor’s head: he decides to conduct a pituitary transplant operation. He does this experiment on a dog in the hope of finding an effective method for gaining a “second youth”. However, the consequences of the operation were unexpected.
Over the course of several weeks, the dog, nicknamed Sharik, becomes a man and receives documents for the name Sharikov. Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Bormental are trying to instill in him worthy and noble human manners. However, their “upbringing” does not bring any visible results.
Turning into human
Preobrazhensky expresses his opinion to assistant Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental: one must understand all the horror that Sharikov no longer has a heart of a dog, but a human heart, moreover, "the most lousy of all that exists in nature."
Bulgakov created a parody of the socialist revolution, described the clashes of two classes, in which Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky is a professor and an intellectual, and the working class is Sharikov and the like.
The professor advises Bormental to not read Soviet newspapers before breakfast, and if there are no others, then reading nothing at all. And openly admits: "Yes, I do not like the proletariat."
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 drinking all this with cognac, vodka and wine, suddenly got into an unexpected situation. The unbridled and arrogant Sharikovs and Shvondery burst into his calm and proportionate aristocratic life.
House
Schwonder is a separate instance of the proletarian class, he and his company make up the house committee in the house where Preobrazhensky lives - an experimental professor. They, however, were seriously engaged in fighting with him. But he, too, is not so simple, Professor Preobrazhensky’s monologue about devastation in his head suggests that the proletariat and his interests are simply hateful to him, and so long as he has the opportunity to devote himself to his beloved cause (science), he will be indifferent to small crooks and crooks like Schwondera.
But with his household Sharikov, he enters into a serious struggle. If Schwonder presses outwardly, then you can’t just disown Sharikov, because it is he - the product of his scientific work and the result of an unsuccessful experiment. Sharikov brings such confusion and ruin into his house that in two weeks the professor experienced more stress than in all his past years.
Form
However, the image of Professor Preobrazhensky is very curious. No, he is by no means an embodied virtue. He, like any person, has his own shortcomings, he is a rather selfish, narcissistic, conceited, but living and real person. Preobrazhensky became the image of a real intellectual, alone fighting the devastation that the Sharikov generation brings. Is this fact not worthy of sympathy, respect and sympathy?
Revolution time
The story "Heart of a Dog" shows the reality of the 20s of the twentieth century. Dirty streets are described where signs are hanging everywhere with promises of a brighter future for people. The bad, cold, inclement weather and the stray image of the dog, which, like most Soviet people in the new country under construction, literally survives and is in constant search of warmth and food, is even more depressing.
It is in this chaos that one of the few Preobrazhensky intellectuals who survived the period of dangerous and difficult time appears, a professor-aristocrat. The character Sharikov, even in his canine body, appreciated it in his own way: that he "eats abundantly and does not steal, will not kick with his foot, and he is not afraid of anyone, because he is always full."
Two sides
The image of Preobrazhensky is like a ray of light, as an island of stability, satiety and well-being in the terrible reality of the post-war years. He's really nice. But many people don’t like a person who, in general, is doing well, but who has not enough seven rooms - he wants another, eighth, to make a library in it.
However, the house began an intensified struggle against the professor and wished to take his apartment from him. In the end, nevertheless, the proletarians did not succeed in harming the professor, and therefore this fact could not but rejoice the reader.
But this is only one side of the medal of Preobrazhensky’s life, and if you delve deeper into the essence of the matter, you can see a not too attractive picture. The prosperity that Bulgakov’s protagonist, Professor Preobrazhensky, possesses, I must say, also did not suddenly fall on his head and did not inherit from wealthy relatives. He made his own wealth. And now he serves people who have gained power in their hands, because now it is their time to enjoy all the benefits.
Parasites
Very interesting things are voiced by one of Preobrazhensky’s clients: “No matter how much I steal, everything goes to the female body,“ Abrau-Durso ”champagne and cancerous necks.” But the professor, despite all his high morality, intelligence and sensitivity, does not try to enlighten his patient, re-educate or express displeasure. He understands that he needs money to maintain his usual way of life without need: with all the necessary servants in the house, with a table filled with all kinds of dishes such as sausages not from Mosselprom or caviar spread on crisp fresh bread.
If you go the logical way, then Preobrazhensky receives the money stolen by officials and tries to provide them with a long youth. It turns out that Preobrazhensky parasitizes on the theft of power that has come. Sharikov’s thoughts are also interesting: “The apartment is obscene, but what good is it!”
Dog truth
In the work, Professor Preobrazhensky uses a canine heart for his experiment. Not because of love for animals, he picks up a tormented dog to feed or warm, but because in his head, as it seems to him, a brilliant but monstrous plan about him was born. And then this operation, which causes only unpleasant emotions, is described in detail in the book. As a result of the rejuvenation operation, the professor has a “newborn” person in his hands. That is why it is not in vain that Bulgakov gives a talking surname and status to his hero - Preobrazhensky, a professor who implants the cerebellum of a thief-recidivist Klimka who has got to his dog. This paid off, the professor did not expect such side effects.
The phrases of Professor Preobrazhensky contain thoughts about education, which, in his opinion, could make Sharikov a more or less acceptable member of social society. But Sharikov was not given a chance. Preobrazhensky had no children, and he did not possess the basics of pedagogy. Perhaps that is why his experiment did not go in the right direction.
And few people pay attention to the words of Sharikov that he, like a poor animal, was seized, voted and now abhor, but he, by the way, did not give his permission for the operation and can sue. And, most interestingly, no one notices the truth behind his words.
Teacher and educator
Preobrazhensky became the first literature teacher for Sharikov, although he understood that to teach to speak does not mean at all to become a full-fledged person. He wanted to make a highly developed personality out of a 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 of the ensuing devastation and the inability of the proletariat to cope with it. The professor believes that people should first of all be taught the most elementary culture, he is sure that using brute force, nothing can be achieved in the world. He realizes that he created a creature with a 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 said: “You can’t tear anyone ... On a person and on an animal you can only act by suggestion. "
But the skills of demagogy, as it turned out, are absorbed much easier and faster than the skills of creative activity. And Schwonder succeeds in raising Sharikov. He does not teach him grammar and mathematics, but begins right away with Engels' correspondence with Kautsky, as a result of which Sharikov, with his low stage of development, despite the complexity of the topic, from which his head was swollen, came to the conclusion: “Take everything and to share! " This idea of social justice was best understood by the people's government and the newly-made citizen Sharikov.
Professor Preobrazhensky: “Devastation in the Heads”
It should be noted that the “Dog Heart” from all sides shows the absurdity and madness of the new structure of society that arose after 1917. This was well understood by Professor Preobrazhensky. The character's quotes about the devastation in the heads are unique. He says that if the doctor, instead of performing operations, begins to sing in chorus, he will fall into ruin. If he begins to urinate past the toilet, and all his servants will do it, then the rest of the rest will begin in the restroom. Therefore, devastation is not in closets, but in the heads.
Famous quotes by Professor Preobrazhensky
In general, the book "Dog Heart" is a real quote book. The main and vivid expressions of the professor were described in the text above, but there are several more that also deserve the attention of the reader and will be interesting for various thoughts.
- "Everybody who is in no hurry anywhere is doing well."
“Why did they remove the carpet from the front staircase?” What, Karl Marx forbids keeping carpets on the stairs? ”
“Humanity itself takes care of this and, in an evolutionary order, every year stubbornly creates dozens of outstanding geniuses adorning the globe from the mass of scum.”
“What is this devastation of yours? An old woman with a stick? A witch who knocked out all the windows and put out all the lights?”