The results of Shvonder's education of Sharikov.

"I have one regret, that during this scene I did not
The Soviet government was present...
so I can show him what material it's made of
is going to build a classless
socialist society."

play "Adam and Eve"

Bulgakov is a writer, as they say, from God, a Chrysostom. His amazing talent amazed not only his fellow writers - Alexei Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Maximilian Voloshin, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Fadeev, Leonid Leonov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn - but also many prominent figures Russian culture, such as Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vasily Kachalov, Ruben Simonov, Boris Astafiev, Dmitry Shostakovich, Nikolai Cherkasov, Svyatoslav Richter... Vyacheslav Shishkov insightfully called Bulgakov a Russian wit and wit.

Bulgakov's work is the pinnacle phenomenon of Russian artistic culture of the twentieth century. The fate of the Master, deprived of the opportunity to be published and heard, is tragic. From 1927 to 1940, until the day of his death, Bulgakov did not see a single line of his own in print. Bulgakov was a kind of prophet. With bitter feeling, he writes that after the end of the war (World War I): "... Western countries lick their wounds, they will get better, they will get better very soon (and will prosper!), and we... we will fight, we will pay for the madness of the October days,... for everything!

Bulgakov's creativity is diverse. But special place it occupies a theme that could be called “the tragedy of the Russian people.” This topic was like an unhealing wound of the writer. “We are wild, dark, unhappy people,” he wrote bitterly in his diary on October 26, 1923. But “misfortune” did not somehow come to the Russian people by itself; it was, according to the writer, created. These are the thoughts that the author sought to develop in his works. They are most vividly captured in the article “Future Prospects”, in the story “ dog's heart"and in other works.

In his famous letter to the “Government of the USSR,” written at one of the most dramatic, terrible moments of his life, his self-awareness, at the end of March 1930, Bulgakov considers one of the main features of his satirical stories to be “deep skepticism regarding the revolutionary process...” . Bulgakov, probably more clearly than any of his contemporaries, most definitely raised the question of freedom of speech, freedom of the press as an indispensable condition for freedom of creativity. Bulgakov, the Knight of Honor, made his choice - readiness for any difficulties, except for the sacrifice of freedom of artistic thought. Loyalty to truth, a sense of honor and steadfast fulfillment of his duty as a writer - the Master carried all this throughout his entire life. As an artist of words, Bulgakov is primarily a satirist, although his palette is always multicolored, deep, unique and multifaceted. He is a bold satirist. His main principle- “satire does not tolerate looking back.”

Bulgakov considered Saltykov-Shchedrin his teacher, his favorite writer was Gogol, and it is not for nothing that he gives a portrait resemblance to Gogol to his innermost hero, the Master.

Bulgakov began composing very early in his adolescence. Mockery, artistic artistry, a craving for theatricality, and subsequently close analysis formed his unique style.

Bulgakov's early prose laid the foundation for Bulgakov's secret - the secret of the fantastic, the phantasmogorical, the secret of doubling and self-denial, the secret of diabolism. This is not only a tribute to the literary tradition (including the German romantics, especially Hoffmann): social and literary life was so absurd, illogical, ugly that it could well seem supernatural.

All the best written by Bulgakov in his 20s is an irreconcilable denial of the defeated and distorted reality, the one that was included in his works, through which a demonic Sabbath swept through.

Already in the twenties, Bulgakov realized that there was a strong secret connection between the author and every page he created. Having created a thought - an image or a whole art world, the author seems to tell them the strength of an indestructible reality - “manuscripts do not burn.”

However, despite the author's obvious penchant for fantasy, his satire is mercilessly realistic, concrete, historically and psychologically reliable; time, cities and people are merged here into a picturesque and convincing picture, it is not for nothing that there are the concepts of “Bulgakov’s Moscow”, “Bulgakov’s Kyiv”.

The writer rises to the highest level of satirical fiction in social and philosophical stories." Fatal eggs" and "Heart of a Dog", which have a lot in common.

If satire states, then satirical fiction warns society of impending dangers and cataclysms. It's about about the tragic discrepancy between the achievements of science - man’s desire to change the world - and his contradictory, imperfect essence, inability to foresee the future, here he embodies his conviction in the preference of normal evolution over violent, revolutionary method intrusions into life, about the responsibility of a scientist and the terrible, destructive force smug aggressive ignorance. These themes are eternal and they have not lost their significance even now.

The idea that naked progress, devoid of morality, brings death to people, is expressed in a new way by the writer in the story “The Heart of a Dog.”

The story "Heart of a Dog", in my opinion, is distinguished by an extremely clear author's idea. Briefly, it can be formulated as follows: the revolution that took place in Russia was not the result of natural socio-economic and spiritual development society, but an irresponsible and premature experiment; therefore, it is necessary to return the country, if possible, to its former natural state. This idea is realized by the writer in allegorical form through the transformation of simple, good-natured dog into an insignificant and aggressive humanoid creature. At the same time, the action is woven whole line persons, in the collision of which many problems of a general or private nature are revealed, which were extremely interesting to the author. But they are most often read allegorically. Allegories are often polysemantic and can have many interpretations.

The author never saw this story, written in 1925, published; it was confiscated from the author along with his diaries by OGPU officers during a search on May 7, 1926. "Heart of a Dog" is Bulgakov's last satirical story. She avoided the fate of her predecessors - she was not ridiculed and trampled upon by false critics from " Soviet literature", because it was published only in 1987. The story is based on great experiment. Everything that was happening around and what was called the construction of socialism, was perceived by Bulgakov precisely as an experiment - huge in scale and more than dangerous. To attempts to create a new perfect society by revolutionary, i.e. methods that do not exclude violence, to educate new things using the same methods, free man he was extremely skeptical. For him, this was such an interference in the natural course of things, the consequences of which could be disastrous, including for the “experimenters” themselves. The author warns readers about this with his work.

The hero of the story, Professor Preobrazhensky, came to Bulgakov’s story from Prechistenka, where the hereditary Moscow intelligentsia had long settled. A recent Muscovite, Bulgakov knew and loved this area. He settled in Obukhov (Chisty) Lane, where “Fatal Eggs” and “Heart of a Dog” were written. People who were close to him in spirit and culture lived here. The prototype of Professor Philip Filippovich Preobrazhensky is considered to be Bulgakov’s maternal relative, Professor N.M. Pokrovsky. But, in essence, it reflected the type of thinking and best features that layer of the Russian intelligentsia, which in Bulgakov’s circle was called “Prechistinka”. Bulgakov considered it his duty to “stubbornly portray the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country.” He treated his hero-scientist with respect and love; to some extent, Professor Preobrazhensky is the embodiment of the outgoing Russian culture, the culture of the spirit, aristocracy.

Professor Preobrazhensky, an elderly man, lives alone in a beautiful, comfortable apartment. the author admires the culture of his life, his appearance - Mikhail Afanasyevich himself loved aristocracy in everything, at one time he even wore a monocle. The proud and majestic Professor Preobrazhensky, who spouts ancient aphorisms, is a luminary of Moscow genetics, a brilliant surgeon engaged in profitable operations to rejuvenate aging ladies and lively elders: the author's irony is merciless - sarcasm in relation to prosperous nepmans. But the professor plans to improve nature itself, he decides to compete with Life itself and create a new person by transplanting part of the human brain. In Bulgakov's story, the theme of Faust sounds in a new way, and it is also tragic, or rather, tragicomic in Bulgakov's way. Only after the accomplishment does the scientist realize the immorality of “scientific” violence against nature and man.

The professor who transforms the dog into a human bears the name Preobrazhensky. And the action itself takes place on Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, by all possible means the writer points out the unnaturalness of what is happening, that this is an anti-creation, a parody of Christmas. And by these signs we can say that in “Heart of a Dog” the motives of the latter and best work Bulgakov - a novel about the devil.

Relationship between scientist and street dog Sharika-Sharikov form the basis of the plot outline of the story. When creating the image of Sharik, the author certainly used the literary tradition. And here the author follows his teacher Gogol, his “Notes of a Madman,” where in one of the chapters a person is shown from a dog’s point of view and where it is said: “Dogs are smart people.” The author is close to the great German romantic Ernest Hoffmann with his cat Murr and intelligent talking dogs.

The basis of the story - internal monologue Sharik, an eternally hungry, miserable street dog. He is not very stupid, in his own way he evaluates the life of the street, life, customs, characters of Moscow during the time of NEP with its numerous shops, teahouses, taverns on Myasnitskaya “with sawdust on the floor, evil clerks who hate dogs”, “where they played the accordion and It smelled like sausages."

The completely chilled, hungry dog, also scalded, observes the life of the street and draws conclusions: “Out of all proletarians, street cleaners are the most vile scum.” “You come across different cooks. For example, the late Vlas from Prechistenka. He saved so many lives.”

He sympathizes with the poor young lady - a typist, frozen, "running into the gateway in her lover's sergeant's stockings." “She doesn’t even have enough for cinema, they deducted money from her at work, fed her rotten meat in the canteen, and the caretaker stole half of her canteen forty kopecks...” In his thoughts and ideas, Sharik contrasts poor girl the image of a triumphant boor - the new master of life: “I am now the chairman, and no matter how much I steal, it’s all on a woman’s body, on cancerous necks, on Abrau-Durso.” “I feel sorry for her, I feel sorry for her. And I feel even more sorry for myself,” complains Sharik.

Seeing Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky, Sharik understands: “he is a man of mental labor...” “this one will not kick.” And now Sharik lives in a luxurious professorial apartment. One of the leading, cross-cutting themes of Bulgakov’s work begins to sound - the theme of the House as the center human life. The Bolsheviks destroyed the House as the basis of the family, as the basis of society. The writer contrasts the lived-in, warm, seemingly eternally beautiful house of the Turbins (“Days of the Turbins”) with Zoyka’s decaying apartment (the comedy “Zoyka’s Apartment”), where there is a fierce struggle for living space, for square meters. Maybe that’s why in Bulgakov’s stories and plays the stable satirical figure is the chairman of the house committee? In “Zoyka’s Apartment” this is Harness, whose dignity is that he “wasn’t at the university”; in “Heart of a Dog” he is called Shvonder; in “Ivan Vasilyevich” - Bunsha; in “The Master and Margarita” - Barefoot. He, the pre-house committee, is the true center of the small world, the focus of power and vulgar, predatory life.

Such a socially aggressive administrator, confident in his permissiveness, is in the story “Heart of a Dog” by the house committee's chairman, Shvonder, a man in a leather jacket, a black man. He, accompanied by his “comrades,” comes to Professor Preobrazhensky to take away his “extra” space and take away two rooms. The conflict with uninvited guests becomes acute: “You are a hater of the proletariat!” the woman said proudly. “Yes, I don’t like the proletariat,” Philip Philipovich agreed sadly.” He does not like the lack of culture, dirt, destruction, aggressive rudeness, and the complacency of the new masters of life. “This is a mirage, smoke, fiction,” is how the professor assesses the practice and history of the new owners. But now the professor performs the main work of his life - a unique operation - an experiment: he transplants a human pituitary gland into the dog Sharik from a 28-year-old man who died a few hours before the operation.

This man, Klim Petrovich Chugunkin, twenty-eight years old, was tried three times. "Profession - playing the balalaika in taverns. Small in stature, poorly built. Liver enlarged (alcohol). Cause of death - stab in the heart in a pub."

As a result the most complex operation an ugly, primitive creature appeared - a non-human, who completely inherited the “proletarian” essence of his “ancestor”. The first words he uttered were swearing, the first distinct words: “bourgeois.” And then - the street words: “don’t push!” “Scoundrel”, “get off the bandwagon”, etc. He was a disgusting “man of small stature and unattractive appearance. The hair on his head grew coarse... His forehead was striking in its small height. A thick head brush began almost directly above the black threads of his eyebrows.” He “dressed up” in the same ugly and vulgar way.

The smile of life is that as soon as Sharikov stands on his hind legs, he is ready to oppress, drive into a corner the “father” who gave birth to him - the professor. And this humanoid creature demands from the professor a document on residence, confident that the house committee, which “protects interests,” will help him with this.

Whose interests, may I ask? - It is known whose - labor element. Philip Philipovich rolled his eyes. - Why are you a hard worker? - Yes, we know, not nepman.

From this verbal duel, taking advantage of the professor’s confusion about his origin (“you are, so to speak, an unexpectedly appeared creature, a laboratory one”), the homunculus emerges victorious and demands that he be given the “hereditary” surname Sharikov, and he chooses a name for himself - Poligraf Poligrafovich. He organizes wild pogroms in the apartment, chases (in his canine essence) cats, causes a flood... All the inhabitants of the professor's apartment are demoralized, there can be no talk of any reception of patients. Sharikov is becoming more impudent every day. In addition, he finds an ally - theorist Shvonder. It is he, Shvonder, who demands the issuance of the document to Sharikov, claiming that the document is the most important thing in the world. The formalism and bureaucracy of the 30s, by the way, haunts our country to this day.

I cannot allow an undocumented tenant to stay in the house, and not yet registered with the police. What if there is a war with imperialist predators? - I won’t go anywhere to fight! “- Sharikov suddenly barked gloomily into the closet.” “Are you an anarchist - an individualist?” asked Shvonder, raising his eyebrows high. “I’m entitled to a white ticket,” Sharikov answered to this...

The scary thing is that the bureaucratic system does not need the science of a professor. It costs her nothing to appoint anyone as a person. Any nonentity, even an empty place, can be taken and appointed as a person. Well, of course, formalize it accordingly and reflect it, as expected, in the documents.

It should also be noted that Shvonder, the chairman of the house committee, is no less responsible than the professor for the humanoid monster. Shvonder supported social status Sharikov, armed him with an ideological phrase, he is his ideologist, his “spiritual shepherd.”

The paradox is that, as can already be seen from the above dialogue, by helping a creature with a “dog’s heart” to establish itself, he is also digging a hole for himself. By setting Sharikov against the professor, Shvonder does not understand that someone else could easily set Sharikov against Shvonder himself. A person with the heart of a dog just needs to point out anyone, say that he is an enemy, and Sharikov will humiliate him, destroy him, etc. How does this remind Soviet time and especially the thirties... And even these days this is not uncommon. Shvonder, the allegorical “black man,” supplies Sharikov with “scientific” literature and gives him Engels’s correspondence with Kautsky to “study.” The beast-like creature does not approve of either author: “And then they write and write... Congress, some Germans...” he grumbles. He draws only one conclusion: “Everything must be divided.” - Do you know the method? - asked an interested Bormental - “But what is the method here,” Sharikov explained, becoming talkative after vodka, “it’s not a tricky thing.” But what about this: one is settled in seven rooms, he has forty pairs of pants, and the other wanders around, looking for food in trash bins."

So the lumpen Sharikov instinctively “smelled” the main credo of the new masters of life, all the Sharikovs: plunder, steal, take away everything created, as well as the main principle of the so-called socialist society being created - universal equalization, called equality. What this led to is well known. Sharikov, supported by Shvonder, becomes more and more relaxed, hooligans openly: To the words of the exhausted professor that he will find a room for Sharikov so that he can move out, the lumpen replies: “Well, yes, I’m such a fool as to move out of here,” Sharikov answered very clearly and presented it to the stunned to the professor Shvonder's paper, what he is entitled to in the professor's apartment living space at 16 meters.

Soon, “Sharikov embezzled 2 chervonets from the professor’s office, disappeared from the apartment and returned late, completely drunk.” He came to the Prechistensky apartment not alone, but with two unknown persons who robbed the professor. Then he carries out night attacks on the ladies of the Prechistensky apartment. The finest hour for Poligraf Poligrafovich was his “service”. Having disappeared from the house, he appears before the astonished professor and Bormenthal as a kind of fine fellow, full of dignity and self-respect, “in a leather jacket from someone else’s shoulder, in worn leather pants and high English boots. The terrible, incredible smell of cats immediately spread throughout the entire hallway He presents the stunned professor with a paper that says that Comrade Sharikov is the head of the department for cleaning the city from stray animals. Of course, Shvonder put him there. When asked why he smells so disgusting, the monster replies: “Well, it smells.” ... it is known: by profession. Yesterday cats were strangled - strangled...

So Bulgakov’s Sharik made a dizzying leap: from stray dogs to orderlies to cleanse the city of stray dogs (and cats, of course). Well, pursuing your own - characteristic all Sharikovs. They destroy their own, as if covering up traces of their own origin...

Sharikov's next move is to appear in the Prechistinsk apartment together with a young girl. “I’m signing with her, this is our typist. Bormental will have to be evicted... - Sharikov explained extremely hostilely and gloomily.” Of course, the scoundrel deceived the girl by telling tales about himself. He behaved so disgracefully with her that a huge scandal broke out again in the Prechistensky apartment: brought to white heat the professor and his assistant began to protect the girl...

The last, final chord of Sharikov’s activity is a denunciation-libel against Professor Preobrazhensky.

It should be noted that it was then, in the thirties, that denunciation became one of the foundations of a “socialist” society, which would be more correctly called totalitarian. Because only a totalitarian regime can be based on denunciation.

Sharikov is alien to conscience, shame, and morality. He has no human qualities except meanness, hatred, malice...

It’s good that on the pages of the story the sorcerer-professor managed to reverse the transformation of a man-monster into an animal, into a dog. It’s good that the professor understood that nature does not tolerate violence against itself. Alas, in real life The Sharikovs won, they turned out to be tenacious, crawling out of all the cracks. Self-confident, arrogant, confident in their sacred rights to everything, semi-literate lumpens brought our country to the deepest crisis, because the Bolshevik-Shvonder thesis of the “Great Leap Forward” socialist revolution", mocking disregard for the laws of evolution could only give rise to the Sharikovs.

In the story, Sharikov returned to being a dog, but in life he went through a long journey and, as it seemed to him, and others were inspired to believe, glorious journey and in the thirties and fifties he poisoned people, just as he once did in the line of duty to stray cats and dogs. Throughout his life, he carried dog anger and suspicion, replacing with them the dog’s loyalty that had become unnecessary. By joining intelligent life, he remained at the level of instincts and was ready to adapt the whole country, the whole world, the whole universe in order to satisfy them, these animal instincts. He is proud of his low origins. He is proud of his low education. He is proud of everything low, because only this lifts him high - above those who are high in spirit, who are high in mind, and therefore must be trampled into the dirt so that Sharikov can rise above them. You involuntarily ask yourself the question: how many of them were and are among us? Thousands? Tens, hundreds of thousands?

Outwardly, the Sharikovs are no different from people, but they are always among us. Their inhuman essence is just waiting to manifest itself. And then the judge, in the interests of his career and the implementation of the plan to solve crimes, condemns the innocent, the doctor turns away from the patient, the mother abandons her child, various officials for whom bribes have already become the order of things, these are politicians who, at the first opportunity to grab a tasty morsel, drop their mask and show their true essence, ready to betray their own. Everything that is most lofty and sacred turns into its opposite, because an inhuman has awakened within them and tramples them into the dirt. When a non-human comes to power, he tries to dehumanize everyone around him, because non-humans are easier to control; in them, all human feelings are replaced by the instinct of self-preservation.

In our country, after the revolution, all conditions were created for the emergence huge amount Balloons with dog hearts. The totalitarian system greatly contributes to this. Probably due to the fact that these monsters have penetrated into all areas of life, that they are still among us, Russia is experiencing now Hard times. Sharikovs with their own, in truth dog vitality, no matter what, they will go over the heads of others everywhere.

The heart of a dog in alliance with the human mind is the main threat of our time. That is why the story, written at the beginning of the century, remains relevant today and serves as a warning to future generations. Today is so close to yesterday... At first glance, it seems that outwardly everything has changed, that the country has become different. But consciousness, stereotypes, the way of thinking of people will not change in either ten or twenty years - more than one generation will pass before the Sharikovs disappear from our lives, before people become different, before the vices described by Bulgakov in his immortal work disappear . How I want to believe that this time will come!...

These are sad thoughts about the consequences (on the one hand possible, on the other - accomplished) of the interaction of three forces: apolitical science, aggressive social rudeness and spiritual power reduced to the level of a house committee.

The story of M.A. Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog" reflects the post-revolutionary era of the 20s - the time of the New Economic Policy. A realistic description of Soviet reality of this time is combined in the story with a narration about the grandiose fantastic experiment of Professor F.F. Preobrazhensky.

As a result of an operation on a dog with a transplantation of the pituitary gland of a human brain, the professor manages to obtain a new creature. The dog has become “humanized” – the dog turns into a human. This is evidenced by the entries called by the author “From the Diary of Doctor Bormenthal.” At first, this is simply a “case history”, which describes the initial data of the “patient” - the dog Sharik, the course of the operation, medical purposes. Then the patient’s condition changes: his hair falls out, his voice appears, his height increases...

Gradually he turns into a person, although poorly developed, but able to talk and then understand those around him. As a new tenant, the chairman of the house committee, Shvonder, takes him under his wing - he lays the foundations for Sharikov’s worldview (on his advice new person chooses the name - Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov). It is very important for Shvonder to exert a certain influence on Sharikov - after all, Shvonder is hostile towards Professor Preobrazhensky, considering him a bourgeois. Sharikov quickly assimilates his vulgar sociological views: everything is determined by a person’s class origin. The maid Zinka is “an ordinary servant, but has the force of a commissar.”

Philip Philipovich, of course, is “not a comrade” - “we didn’t study at universities, we didn’t live in apartments with 15 rooms with bathrooms.” Sharikov quickly learned that “nowadays everyone has his own right,” but he does not want to understand that he must also have responsibilities. Therefore, he makes many claims to the professor, but is not capable of a basic feeling of gratitude. Under the influence of Shvonder, he reads books, the content of which he does not understand, and everything that he does not understand, be it books or theater, is “counter-revolution”. Reading the correspondence between Engels and Kautsky, he “disagrees” with both; his opinion is simple: “Take everything and divide it.”

Shvonder wrote accusatory articles against the professor - Sharikov went further: he learned to write denunciations. Shvonder was surprised to see that Sharikov was leaving his influence when the conversation came up about the need for documents, registration, registration for military service - Sharikov agreed to “get registered”, but categorically refused to fight. When Sharikov drank away the money borrowed to buy textbooks, Shvonder was finally convinced that Sharikov was a “scoundrel.” And yet, the socially close Sharikov is closer and more understandable to Shvonder than the class-alien Professor Preobrazhensky. Unlike Shvonder, the professor realized that Sharikov, in his meanness and impudence, would go much further than his “educator,” showing himself to be a worthy “student.”

The brilliant surgeon is engaged in profitable rejuvenation operations. But the professor plans to improve nature itself, he decides to compete with life itself and create a new person by transplanting a dog part of the human brain. For this experiment, he chooses the street dog Sharik.
The eternally hungry miserable dog Sharik is not stupid in his own way. He evaluates the life, customs, and characters of Moscow during the NEP with its numerous shops, taverns on Myasnitskaya “with sawdust on the floor, evil clerks who hate dogs,” “where they played the accordion and smelled of sausages.” Observing the life of the street, he draws conclusions: “Janitors are the most vile scum of all proletarians”; “The chef comes across different people. For example, the late Vlas from Prechistenka. How many lives I saved.” Seeing Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky, Sharik understands: “He is a man of mental labor...”, “this one will not kick.” I
And now the professor performs the main task of his life - a unique operation: he transplants the human pituitary gland from a man who died a few hours before the operation to the dog Sharik. This man, Klim Petrovich Chugunkin, twenty-eight years old, was tried three times. “Profession is playing the balalaika in taverns. Small in stature, poorly built. The liver is dilated (alcohol). The cause of death was a stab in the heart in a pub.” As a result of a most complex operation, an ugly, primitive creature appeared, completely inheriting the “proletarian” essence of its “ancestor”. Bulgakov describes his appearance this way: “A man of short stature and unattractive appearance. The hair on his head grew coarse... His forehead was striking in its small height. A thick head brush began almost directly above the black threads of the eyebrows.” The first words he uttered were swearing, the first distinct word: “bourgeois.”
With the appearance of this humanoid creature, the life of Professor Preobrazhensky and the inhabitants of his house becomes a living hell. He organizes wild pogroms in the apartment, chases (in his canine nature) cats, causes a flood... All the inhabitants of the professor’s apartment are completely at a loss, there can’t even be any talk of accepting patients. “The man at the door looked at the professor with dull eyes and smoked a cigarette, sprinkling ashes on his shirtfront...” The owner of the house is indignant: “Don’t throw cigarette butts on the floor - I ask you for the hundredth time. So that I don't hear any more dirty word. Don't spit in the apartment! Stop all conversations with Zina. She complains that you are stalking her in the dark. Look!” Sharikov says to him in response: “For some reason, dad, you’re painfully oppressing me... Why aren’t you letting me live?”
The “unexpectedly appeared... laboratory” creature demands to assign him the “hereditary” surname Sharikov, and he chooses a name for himself - Poligraf Poligrafovich. Having barely become some semblance of a person, Sharikov becomes impudent right before our eyes. He demands from the apartment owner a document of residence, confident that the house committee, which protects the “interests of the working element,” will help him with this. In the person of the chairman of the house committee, Shvonder, he immediately finds an ally. It is he, Shvonder, who demands the issuance of the document to Sharikov, arguing that the document is the most important thing in the world: “I cannot allow an undocumented tenant to stay in the house, and not yet registered with the police. What if there is a war with imperialist predators?” Soon Sharikov presents the owner of the apartment with a “paper from Shvonder”, according to which he is entitled to a living space of 16 square meters in the professor’s apartment.
Shvonder also supplies Sharikov with “scientific” literature and gives him Engels’s correspondence with Kautsky to “study”. The humanoid creature does not approve of either author: “Otherwise they write, write... Congress, some Germans...” He draws one conclusion: “Everything must be divided.” And he even knows how to do it. “What is the method,” Sharikov answers Bormental’s question, “it’s not a tricky thing. But then what: one settled in seven rooms, he has forty pairs of pants, and the other wanders around, looking for food in trash bins.”
Polygraph Poligrafovich quickly finds a place for himself in a society where “those who were nothing will become everything.” Shvonder arranges for him to be the head of the department for cleaning the city from stray animals. And so he appears before the astonished professor and Bormenthal “in a leather jacket from someone else’s shoulder, in worn leather pants and high English boots.” A stench spreads throughout the apartment, to which Sharikov remarks: “Well, well, it smells... it’s known: it’s in the specialty. Yesterday cats were strangled and strangled...”

The story of M.A. Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog" reflects the post-revolutionary era of the 20s - the time of NEP. A realistic description of Soviet reality of this time is combined with a narrative about the grandiose fantastic experiment of Professor F.F. Preobrazhensky. As a result of an operation on a dog with a transplantation of the pituitary gland of a human brain, the professor manages to obtain a new creature. The dog has become “humanized” - the dog turns into a human. This is evidenced by the entries called by the author “From the Diary of Doctor Bormenthal.” At first, this is simply a “case history”, which describes the initial data of the “patient” - the dog Sharik, the course of the operation, and medical prescriptions. Then the patient’s condition changes: his hair falls out, his voice appears, his height increases... Gradually he turns into a person, although poorly developed, but able to speak and then understand those around him. As a new tenant, the chairman of the house committee, Shvonder, takes him under his wing - he lays the foundations for Sharikov’s worldview (on his advice, the new person chooses a name - Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov). It is very important for Shvonder to influence Sharikov certain influence, because Shvonder is hostile towards Professor Preobrazhensky, considering him a bourgeois. Sharikov quickly assimilates his vulgar sociological views: everything is determined by a person’s class origin. The maid Zinka is “an ordinary servant, but has the force of a commissar.” Philip Philipovich, of course, is “not a comrade”: “we didn’t study at universities, we didn’t live in apartments with 15 rooms with bathrooms.” Sharikov quickly learned that “nowadays everyone has his own right,” but he does not want to understand that he must also have responsibilities. Therefore, he makes many claims to the professor, but is not capable of a basic feeling of gratitude. Under the influence of Shvonder, he reads books whose content he does not understand, and everything he does not understand, be it books or theater, is “counter-revolution.” Reading the correspondence between Engels and Kautsky, he “disagrees” with both; his opinion is simple: “Take everything and divide it.” Shvonder wrote accusatory articles against the professor, Sharikov went further: he learned to write denunciations. Shvonder was surprised to see that Sharikov was leaving his influence when the conversation came up about the need for documents, registration, registration for military service - Sharikov agreed to “get registered”, but categorically refused to fight. When Sharikov drank away the money borrowed to buy textbooks, Shvonder was finally convinced that Sharikov was a “scoundrel.” And yet the socially close Sharikov is more understandable to Shvonder than the class-alien Professor Preobrazhensky. Unlike Shvonder, the professor realized that Sharikov, in his meanness and arrogance, would go much further than his “educator,” showing himself to be a worthy “student.”