Works about doctors always excited people's interest. It is not surprising, because, on the one hand, the Aesculapius are the same as us, and on the other hand, doctors are magicians and wizards who use only their mind and certain skills, but at the same time create a real miracle of healing a person. The reader is invited to meet a wonderful person and doctor Pavel Alekseevich Kukotsky - the main character of the book by Lyudmila Ulitskaya “The Case of Kukotsky”. A summary of it is presented below.
The protagonist of the novel
The time of the beginning of the novel dates back to the period of the very dawn of Soviet power. The young government had to take care of a lot, and above all the health of its people. The protagonist of the book “The Case of Kukotsky” (a brief summary of it is in front of us) is doctor Kukotsky Pavel Alekseevich, a very talented person who sincerely loves his patients. Since Kukotsky is a gynecologist, only women were treated with him. He leads pregnancies, takes birth, soothes fever after miscarriages. Victims of clandestine abortions die in his arms. This man knows everything about women's health, because he also sees the dirt of lonely unheated rooms in which poor uneducated pregnant seamstresses huddle, trying to feed four children, and children freezing to death due to malnutrition. P.A. Kukotsky also knows such women who are not at all concerned about hygiene and their own further destiny.
And, of course, Pavel Alekseevich keeps statistics. It is necessary both for the state and for the doctor himself. Kukotsky not only heals, but also sincerely takes care of his wards. In those days, people were sent to a colony for abortion, but the doctor understood very well why women decided on such an unseemly act. On the scale of a large country, the need to make up for losses in human units was obvious, but each individual family had its own material capabilities and its own motivations, therefore it did not always want to follow the state need and, sadly, women cut out a new, nascent life from themselves. And, of course, it was important for Pavel Alekseevich to understand that his act saved the lives of both the patient and her other children (who rarely eliminated her first child), because if she died or went to prison, it is not known what would happen to minors. Nobody ever really cared about homeless children, and the orphanage is not the place where I really wanted to go at all times. That is probably why the doctor never put “illegal abortion” on the medical card if the woman survived. This diagnosis was made only unhappy when, as a result of a terrible operation without pain relief, she died.
“The Case of Kukotsky” (a brief summary does not refute this observation in any way) is a novel in the center of which there is a person with a big and warm heart.
Naturally, Kukotsky was an ardent supporter of the legalization of abortion. Using all his influence among some representatives of the medical elite of that time, he tried with all his might to get permission for abortion in the hospital. Both arguments and examples from life were used, even the preparations were creepy, truthful, graphic examples of alternative methods of treatment for an unwanted pregnancy.
It is easy to understand from our description that Lyudmila Ulitskaya derived the ideal image of a doctor from her novel. “The Case of Kukotsky” (a brief summary leads to this) is a story about a real doctor.
History of Elena and Tatyana
In addition to the undoubted professional training, Kukotsky also had the gift: he saw affected organs, people's diseases through the skin. He himself called it "intravision." The specifics of work (constant direct contact with women) muffled this ability, but there was such a girl, whose proximity did not interfere with this. Elena is the wife of Kukotsky, his former patient.
During World War II, the doctor himself removed her uterus, and accepted her child (Tatyana) as her own, and never regretted the absence of her own children. The doctor also took with him a very long-time assistant to the Elena's family - the former nun Vasilisa. However, during one of the usual family quarrels, the spouses crossed the line: the wife reprimanded her husband for his desire to legalize abortion, and Pavel Alekseevich reminded Elena that she was barren. Their relationship then came down to conversation at dinner. As can be seen from the description, the protagonist of the book “The Case of Kukotsky” (a brief summary of it unfolds gradually before the reader), lacked tolerance and sensitivity in family life.
However, this did not stop them from taking Tamara into the family - the daughter of one of the patients, Pavel Alekseevich (a female janitor). She died of a failed seventh abortion.
Tanya and Tom
The writer consciously contrasts each other with two heroines: the beautiful Tanya, whom everyone loves, and the ugly and timid Tom, who lives out of pity “on the bird's rights” from strangers. Tanya was invited to parties for her beauty, Tom - in addition to her sister. Tanya - loved, Tom - endured.
A story recognizable and close to many was “mounted” in the book by Ulitskaya. “Kukotsky’s case” (a brief summary is also a bit about this) also means that some people are loved just like that, “for beautiful eyes”, while others should still deserve love and recognition. Of course, in the long run, this only benefits the one and the other, but does not reduce the pain at the moment when they put up with you and do not even hide it.
Tanya once and for all made a moral choice for herself : she decided not to connect life with biology, as her father advised her. There were two main reasons for this: firstly, the voluptuousness of some university professors. They sleep and see how to seduce the next fresh freshman; secondly, the insanity of health workers who are forced to not take human grief close to their hearts to maintain a healthy psyche. In other words, they relate to a person as an animate object, object (to justify doctors it is worth saying that such an attitude is a necessary condition for treating patients). Therefore, the girl once came out of the doors of an educational institution and surrendered to the first person she met. Such was her initiation into the world of bohemia. Tamara studied diligently (she doesn’t have much space in the book), she became a biologist, got married, and earned a reputation as the successor to Kukotsky’s case. In other words, she lived a slightly boring, but more proper life than Tanya.
Pregnancy and death Tanya
The one that everyone liked so much (Tatyana), herself did not love anyone. When she became pregnant from one of the Goldberg brothers - the twin sons of a companion and like-minded Pavel Alekseevich, she married by calculation so that her husband would not be taken into the army. Being a long gestation, fell in love with musician Sergei. Tanya finally found a man with whom she wanted to live her whole life. After the birth of the first daughter of Zhenya, the heroine wanted a child from a loved one. But the coveted pregnancy ended in death from a common illness. Of course, the adoptive father would never have admitted the disease, but he did not observe his daughter, as Tatyana and her new friend, the musician, went to Crimea.
Pavel Alekseevich never changed endurance. Even when he arrives at the maternity hospital where his adopted daughter died, the doctor first of all carries out preventive measures aimed at protecting other women from the same sad fate that befell his child, and only then gives vent to feelings.
At this time, Elena closes herself and slowly goes crazy. She sees unusually vivid dreams about the past, about the future, about the rebirth and the decision of the fate of the still alive. The second part of Ulitskaya’s book is devoted to these dreams. At first glance, they seem in no way incoherent nonsense. However, behind it lies the deep secret of human existence.
It is the description of such tragic events that fascinates and keeps the reader in constant tension the novel “The Case of Kukotsky,” the summary of the book is not able to hide the drama of the phenomena occurring in it.
Book finale
The book closes with a short story about the fate of all the heroes: the Goldberg brothers, Tamara, musician Sergey, Zhenya. The last character visits his grandmother Elena every week, despite the late gestation. And all these people are connected with each other by the memory of Pavel Alekseevich and Tan. This is almost all on the topic “The Case of Kukotsky: a brief summary of the novel.” We only need to share our final observations with the reader.
Why is the book called Ulitskaya so
The fateful incidents (contradictions, mismatches, paradoxes) of Kukotsky are as follows:
1. The idea of ​​legal abortion became the basis for a break with his wife, however, it was the drugs (visual samples) of this doctor that made some officials think and ultimately pass the law.
2. The doctor, who saved the lives of women and their children, lost his beloved adopted daughter precisely from an unsuccessful pregnancy.
3. Finally, Vasilisa, who lived in the house of the famous gynecologist for more than twenty years, suffered from prolapse of the uterus, but at the same time she tolerated and did not say a word, and in general was only interested in her household duties.