S. Ioffe. Cryptography in " dog heart»

"Printed in order of discussion."

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

Everyone was happy, but our company turned out to be the first Bulgakov scholar then, a great friend of Bulgakov, who said that Mikhail Afanasyevich had recently written a memoir satire "Heart of a Dog", in which Stalin is the most main character. And he was named Chugunkin.

Not only the Bulgakov scholar in our company was familiar with Bulgakov's satire; a few more 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 artistic image tavern balalaika player, some of whose organs, when he died, were used by Professor Preobrazhensky to transplant the dog Sharik.

The Bulgakov expert got a little excited and declared that not only was Stalin camouflaged in Heart of a Dog in such a transparent way, with the help of the speaking surname Chugunkin, but another famous figure was also covered with a completely transparent first and last name. The 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 the real name of Grigory Evseevich is Apfelbaum. Apfelbaum, as you know, in German means "apple tree"; Bunin has a famous story "Antonov apples", hence the surname for Zinoviev - Bunin.

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

The Bulgakov scholar was offended by this criticism and declared 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 of the Navy, organizer of the October coup and leader of the Red Army in the Civil War; the cunning, vindictive, vicious fawning dog Sharik is also Stalin, like Chugunkin, but in a different guise and at a different time; and Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov, the result of Preobrazhensky's experimental operation to transplant the gonads and pituitary gland of Chugunkin 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 was unstoppable. He claimed that Bulgakov wrote 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 argued that the cook of Preobrazhensky Daria is the famous first chef of the Cheka F.E. p", as in "tear, rip off") that the chairman of the house committee Shvonder is Lev Borisovich

Kamenev-Rozenfeld is a member of the Politburo, Chairman of the Moscow City Council, 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, which the cunning and vicious fawn dog Sharik so loved to wag, is the owl Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, which Comrade Stalin loved to vilify so much ...

But let's try to cool off from the imaginary game of 1925. Let's remember what we know about the 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 Nedra almanac, in which Bulgakov published Fatal eggs". (The plot of the "Fatal Eggs" is remarkably similar to the "Heart of a Dog", there are also roll calls: in the "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: Peach-Persian.)

In March 1925, The Heart of a Dog was circulated in an almanac. Attempts to pass it through censorship were unsuccessful. Moreover, in the summer of 1926, agents of the GPU came to Bulgakov with a search, the manuscript of The Heart of a Dog was taken away from him, a few years later it was returned with great difficulty thanks to Gorky's assistance. Bulgakov himself, after the search, seems to have been taken to the Lubyanka and interrogated.

A copy of the "Heart of a Dog", handed over to Angarsky, was preserved in his archive with an inscription, obviously in case of unpleasant questions: "This thing is of no great value either in design or in artistic execution."

In 1926, the Moscow Art Theater, which was already rehearsing a play called The Days of the Turbins, suggested that Bulgakov stage The Heart of a Dog, but censorship intervened.

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 an edited manuscript, which was published by YMCA-Press in 1969. This edition is considered canonical. Until 1987, Heart of a Dog was never printed in the Soviet Union. The content of the work boils down to the fact that the professor-surgeon Preobrazhensky, who transplants the gonads of a monkey to patients for rejuvenation, decides to experimentally transplant the gonads and pituitary gland of a 25-year-old man to a two-year-old dog "to clarify the question of the survival of the pituitary gland, and later on its effect on rejuvenation of the human body. Rejuvenation failed, received new person, which retains the worst features 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, thieving, hooligan aggressiveness makes the professor's life completely unbearable. In the fight, the professor's assistant seemingly kills the lab creature. The professor is even accused of murder, but he suddenly presents a dog with human signs disappearing before his eyes.

Already in this presentation, two oddities are visible. First: why, in order to clarify the issue of human rejuvenation, it is necessary to take a young two-year-old dog and transplant the organs of a young 25-year-old man to him? The second oddity: it remains unclear whether the dog-man was killed or whether the professor and his assistant transplanted the preserved sex glands and the dog's pituitary gland into the monster, returning it to a canine state. However, these two oddities are not the only ones in the Heart of a Dog. Even the Bulgakov scholar said that the relationship of 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-in-arms were either actively against him (Kamenev-Shvonder), or prone to hesitation and not big enough as individuals (Zinoviev-Zina and Dzerzhinsky-Daria). But, deftly maneuvering, Stalin-Shaarik-Chugunkin-Sharikov became close to Kamenev-Shvonder, Zinoviev-Zina, Dzerzhinsky-Daria, as a result of which Lenin had to call for help from his old rival, Trotsky-Bormenthal. Together they managed to win a temporary victory over Stalin-Sharikov. It can be assumed that at the end of The Heart of a Dog, written in January-March 1925, we are talking about recent months activity of Preobrazhensky-Lenin, until March 10, 1923, in which Sharik-Stalin firmly entrenched himself in the Prechistensky-Kremlin apartment of Preobrazhensky-Lenin.

But in the text of "The Heart of a Dog" there are other oddities besides the similarity with the 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 the dog Sharik, before meeting Professor Preobrazhensky, a lover of the opera Aida, had already met some grimza who sings “dear Aida” in a meadow under the moonlight. It seems that this grimza and Preobrazhensky are the same person, Lenin. The aria may allude to Lenin's romance with Inessa Armand (the first and last letters of the name and surname "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, the chairman, down to the smallest bed details. At the same time, the typist tries to caress Sharik. And later, after the transformation of Sharik into Sharikov, the head of the sub-department of the MKH (Moscow communal services, that is, the communist economy, the secretariat of the Central Committee), he appears with his mistress, the same typist. From which it follows that the dog Sharik-Stalin, aka Sharikov-Stalin, was familiar with the typist for a long time and that the lover-chairman is also Stalin.

Typist Vasnetsova - typist MX Ta Olga Sergeevna Bokshanskaya (née Nyurenberg), Nemirovich-Danchenko's secretary, elder sister of Elena Sergeevna Nyurenberg-Shilovskaya-Bulgakova, the last of Bulgakov's three wives. She is Toropetskaya (i.e., doing everything quickly) in “Notes of a Dead Man” (“Theatrical Novel”), which Ivan Vasilyevich (Stanislavsky) was so afraid of. Born in Riga in 1891 in the family of a tax inspector and a theatergoer. In 1909, the family moved to St. Petersburg, in 1916 O. S. moved to Moscow. In August 1919, she went to work 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 with Stalin, then already married to Nadezhda Alliluyeva, and became his mistress.

Arriving in Moscow in September 1921, Bulgakov made many useful acquaintances, among them Bokshanskaya, whose romance with Stalin was waning or had already ended. Stalin, breaking ties with Bokshanskaya, did not stop 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 a lover of Bokshanskaya (he was then married to Tatyana Lappa), through her he met Stalin. At Bokshanskaya, Bulgakov also met his future, last and third wife, E. S. Nurenberg, before his marriage to Bulgakov - Shilovskaya.

Bokshanskaya contributed to Bulgakov's literary career. It can be assumed that she helped Bulgakov with the journal publication of The White Guard, that she advised 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, there was a serious conflict between the sisters because of Bulgakov, but ended with Bokshanskaya remaining a friend of Bulgakov. She read everything that Bulgakov wrote - she had the talent of a critic and editor. She reprinted all his works. But the main thing - in mind and character, she was the true elder sister of Elena Sergeevna. And without Elena Sergeevna, we, perhaps, would now know as much about Bulgakov as we knew in the 50s, that is, almost nothing. In fact, we must talk about two sisters in the life and fate of Bulgakov. Fortunately for us, Bulgakov himself took care of this sufficiently in his secret writings.

In the 1930s, Bokshanskaya married an actor from the Moscow Art Theater of Kaluga. 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" in the Moscow Art Theater. For many Muscovites, one way or another close to the Kremlin and MX Tu, her relationship with Stalin was probably never a secret. She died in Moscow on May 3, 1948. The yearbook of the Moscow Art Theater dedicated a large obituary article to her. Obituaries were also published in Moscow newspapers.

In the scientific literature on Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog", the allegorical allusion plan of this work is not excluded, although no one has studied the study of speaking surnames and, in general, speaking allegorically linguistic signs. Yes, prof. Ellendea Proffer, a leading specialist on Bulgakov, author of many articles and a large book about him, publisher and editor of the 10-volume collected works of Bulgakov in Russian in the United States, 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.) is dealing is very ticklish. 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 inherent scholarly air. And it is difficult to doubt that Sharik, this charming and original dog, is a certain type of narrow-minded Russian worker or peasant whom the Bolshevik revolution turned into the vile Sharikov. It is heredity that makes Sharikov the way 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 Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky is Lenin. Moreover, I believe that not only the surname, but also the name and patronymic of the professor are speakers. "Philip" in Greek means "lover of horses", that is, a lover of riding horses, driving horses, hence the ruler. And “Philip Filippovich” is a doubly ruler who has a passion for political power deep in his blood. That's how it was

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

We note one important feature in E. Proffer's analysis. She is absolutely right, drawing attention to the fact that Bulgakov is familiar with the art of speaking surnames: Preobrazhensky is a transformer. It is a pity that "Preobrazhensky" is the only example of her analysis of the speaking linguistic signs in "Heart of a Dog".

But if Bulgakov believed that the Shariki-Chugunkin-Sharikovs, Russia's new ruling class, were a mixture of 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 holy concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat? Even Bulgakov could allow Preobrazhensky to oppose, which he did, but Bulgakov himself could hardly have been so frivolous in the seventh year of Soviet power and the Cheka.

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

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

Let's try to formulate this understanding. In the struggle for power in Soviet Russia in 192-22, there were only three contenders: Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, two intellectuals and the son of a drunkard shoemaker, a half-educated seminarian with a very modest education, a man of a criminal type. In late 1922 - early 1923, the sick Lenin, although he tried to do something, wrote letters from Gorki, but actually left the game. Let us recall Preobrazhensky at the end of The Heart of a Dog, who turned gray, suffered a deep fainting spell, from which he almost died (that is, a blow, Bulgakov writes: “hit his head during the fall”), but still with slippery gloves taking out brains from vessels . This is Lenin, trying by any, even slippery, methods to return what was lost, to expel Sharik-Stalin from his Kremlin-Prechistensky apartment. Without Lenin, the Angarskys and Bulgakovs had to choose between Stalin and Trotsky.

That a Jew by patronymic and surname Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental is Trotsky-Bronstein, there is no doubt, even though the surname, name and patronymic of Bulgakov's Trotsky are not as direct as those of Stalin-Chugunkin and Zinoviev-Zina. However, his surname "Bormental" consists of two parts: "Bormen-", which resembles "Bron-" from real surname Trotsky (Bronstein), and “-tal”, which contains “t” and “l”, that is, the initials of the pseudonym and name of L. Trotsky. The name from which Bormenthal's patronymic is formed - "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 Soviet of Workers

deputies in the revolution of 1905 (the role of Lenin 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. We only note that Bulgakov's attitude towards Trotsky was different in different years. So, he is bred in The Diaboliad under the name of the passive Jan Sobessky, 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 Shvonder will leave horns and legs. Having the criminal Stalin-Sharik-Chugunkin-Sharikov as the owner of the Kremlin-Prechistensky apartment was a scary prospect.

Naturally, Bulgakov and Angarsky could harbor some illusions about the outcome of Trotsky's political struggle with Stalin. A particularly strong trump card seemed to them Lenin's "Testament" and the postscript to it about Stalin. When publishing The Heart of a Dog, they hoped for the assistance of Trotsky-oriented censors. But events developed clearly not in Trotsky's favor, so Bulgakov earlier, and Angarsky a little later, renounced the Heart of a Dog. Bulgakov, in particular, did not write a tearful letter to the censors, as Angarsky had advised him, and probably reacted coolly to the suggestion of the Moscow Art Theater to write a dramatization. "Heart of a Dog" was written in a cipher too simple for contemporaries to break spears because of it.

The fact that Sharik is Stalin is evidenced not only by the surname "Chugunkin". Sharik is a small ball, and Stalin was short and of very modest, "mongrel" origin. It is remarkable that Bulgakov gives the most detailed description of Stalin's appearance and personality in world memoir literature. Let us give some details of this description in the order in which they are given by Bulgakov.

“How much for ... phildepers she (the typist Vasnetsova-Bokshanskaya, Stalin's mistress. - S.I.) must endure bullying. 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 the chairman-Stalin. - S.I.), I was tormented with flannel pants, now my time has come. I am now the chairman, and no matter how much I steal - everything is on female body, on cancer necks, on Abrau-Durso. Because I was hungry enough in my youth * .. ”; "Kissed on the boat" (Preobrazhensky); “Let me lick my boot” (Preobrazhensky); “If I... start urinating past the toilet...” (Preobrazhensky, alluding to Sharikov); “The dog stood (in front of Preobrazhensky) on his hind legs and chewed his jacket, the dog studied Philip Philipovich’s call ... and flew out barking to meet him in the hall”; “dog-licker”, “scoundrel”, “had some secret to win the hearts of people”; "gentle, though cunning"; "the forehead is sloping and low"; "... gives the impression of a small and poorly built man"; “His smile is unpleasant and, as it were, artificial”; “Swearing (obscenities). This swearing is methodical, uninterrupted” (Stalin was a great specialist in Russian and Georgian cursing); “He eats herring with enthusiasm” (in the 1930s, 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 turned out and the sentence was suspended. How can one not recall the famous robbery of the Tiflis Bank, when

Stalin was a little over 25 years old); "head small"; “a man ... of an unsympathetic appearance. The hair... on the head... coarse... and the face was covered with unshaven fluff. The forehead struck with its small height. Almost directly above the black tassels of the scattered eyebrows, a thick head brush began ”; "Looking with hazy eyes"; “His voice was unusual, deaf and at the same time booming”; "Savage! ... I positively have not seen a more arrogant creature than you ”(Preobrazhensky); “You are at the lowest stage of development... you are still a being that is being formed, mentally weak, all your actions are purely bestial, and you... allow yourself to give some advice on a cosmic scale and cosmic stupidity with an absolutely unbearable swagger ... "(Preobrazhensky); “In the words (of Preobrazhensky about Sharikov) the word “criminal” sounded several times.

His name is Chugunkin-Sharik-Sharikov-Stalin 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 struggle with Lenin. As you know, the commanding staff of the Red Army consisted, on the one hand, of the Voroshilovs, Budyonnys, Chapaevs, Dybenko, i.e., from the worker-peasant Pugachev freemen, and on the other, from former tsarist officers. Since the 1919 discussion 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 proved to be stronger than the officers.

Now we can explain the last oddity of the Heart of a Dog. Bormental seemed to have strangled Sharik-Sharikov, but he turned out to be alive and well, firmly settled in Preobrazhensky's apartment, from which there was a shadow of the former, moreover, Bormental is not visible in the apartment. The explanation is simple. The attempts of Lenin and Trotsky to stop Stalin, who was rushing to power, were crowned with temporary success, but then Lenin and Trotsky were defeated, and Stalin settled in the Kremlin.

The scene in which Sharik poked Bormenthal's leg is an allusion to the well-known conflict between Trotsky and Stalin during the civil war in 1919. Trotsky's commander-in-chief was I. I. Vatsetis, colonel of the tsarist army. Stalin also sought the appointment to this post of his then protege S. S. Kamenev, also a colonel in the tsarist army. When Lenin yielded to Stalin, Trotsky resigned. But Lenin persuaded him to refuse to resign. So Stalin-Sharik poked Trotsky-Bormenthal's leg, so Trotsky had to swallow the pill.

Sharikov's admission to work as the head of a subdepartment of the Moscow communal services is, of course, Stalin's appointment to the post of General Secretary of the RCP (b) on April 3, 1921. It was not clear to historians on whose initiative the appointment took place. Stalin later claimed, of course, that it happened on the initiative of Lenin. The issue has been debated by historians without concrete results. Bulgakov tells us in no uncertain terms 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": Zinoviev, who had ambitious plans, could then be considered such. Zina is a maid, sometimes involved in operations by Preobrazhensky, but afraid of blood. As a politician, Zinoviev was no match for Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin. Zina-Zinoviev is no more than a servant, now opposed to Sharik-Stalin, now for him.

It has already been said above that Dzerzhinsky is the cook Daria Petrovna Ivanova. Her patronymic and surname are widespread, ordinary 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 Darya is Dzerzhinsky, looking into the kitchen of Darya Petrovna, where she “like a furious executioner” “with a sharp narrow knife ... cut off the heads and paws of helpless hazel grouse”, “ripped the meat off the bones”; “the damper jumped back with a thunder, revealing a terrible hell”; her "face ... burned with anguish and passion, everything except a dead nose." After that, it is impossible not to understand that the kitchen is Lubyanka, and the cook is Iron Felix.

By the way, the dead nose of Darya-Dzerzhinsky is by no means a fruit creative imagination Bulgakov. 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" echoes "Olga".

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

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

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

Since we are talking about the Marxist interests of the characters in The Heart of a Dog, we must recall the unexpected for Sharikov, but natural for Stalin, interest in the correspondence between Engels and Kautsky, in which the illiterate Marxist Stalin did not understand anything. Preobrazhensky-Lenin ordered to burn the correspondence of Kautsky, whom Lenin severely scolded during those years (Preobrazhensky calls him the devil),

Sharikov-Stalin calls Zina-Zinoviev a social servant of Preobrazhensky-Lenin, and Preobrazhensky-Lenin himself a Menshevik. Sharikov-Stalin alludes to the secret alliance of Preobrazhensky-Lenin and Bormental-Trotsky against him: Bormental, "secretly not registered, lives in his (Preobrazhensky. - S.I.) apartment." Bormenthal-Trotsky recalls his first meeting with Preobrazhensky-Lenin: he appeared to him as a half-starved student (Trotsky, as a young man, came to the emigrant Lenin at an 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, who cheats on her right and left, is the famous sailor Dybenko, an army commander from the breed of illiterate Budyonny and Voroshilov (born 1889).

Fat and tall man 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 Moscow Council (hence "- house manager). "Rosenfeld" in German means "field of roses", and "schwand" - "hillside". Bulgakov simultaneously hints at the semantic similarity of the words "field" and "hill" and at the political bias of Kamenev. Historians know that Kamenev supported Stalin for a long time, but relations between him and Lenin looked neutral. Bulgakov the historian reveals to us the exceptional bitterness between the two "Party- genossen".

Two of Schwonder's companions are easily identified. Blond in a hat - P. K. Shternberg (born 1865), a prominent Bolshevik, member of the party since 1905, professor-astronomer. His mistress Vyazemskaya is V.N. Yakovleva (year of birth 1884, 19 years difference), the secretary of the Moscow Committee at that time, a member of the party since 1904 and others. 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 Vyazma gingerbread, hence her surname Vyazemskaya.

If desired, it is not difficult to find out the other two visitors of Preobrazhensky-Lenin: you need to take the periodicals of that time and search among the members of the Moscow Party Committee. And in general, an appeal to periodicals could help establish many details: who was the cat with the blue bow, with whom Sharikov-Stalin had a fight; 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, that is, the elucidation of details and details, however important they may be for historians, have not been raised here by me. The main task now, in my opinion, is the very formulation of the question. Literary critics and historians must understand that before us is not just piece of art Bulgakov, but a whole memoir satirical cycle, which did not include only feuilletons. The main task now is to give each Bulgakov's secret work a primary decoding.

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Story

The story was written in January-March 1925. During a search conducted at Bulgakov's by the OGPU on May 7, 1926 (order 2287, case 45), the manuscript of the story was also confiscated from the writer. Three editions of the text have been preserved (all in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library): the chapter "Give the floor to the textologist".

In the USSR in the 1960s, the story was distributed in samizdat [ ] .

In 1967, without the knowledge and against the will of the writer's widow E. S. Bulgakova, the casually copied text of "Heart of a Dog" was transferred to the West: the chapter "My French Queen ..." simultaneously to several publishing houses and in 1968 was published in the magazine "Frontiers" (Frankfurt ) and in Alek Flegon's journal "Student" (London).

Plot

The story of a dog that turned into a man quickly became known in medical circles, and then turned out to be the property of the tabloid press. Colleagues express their admiration to Professor Preobrazhensky, Sharik is shown in a medical lecture hall, and curious people begin to come to the professor's house. But Preobrazhensky himself is not happy with the outcome of the operation, as he understands that he can get out of Sharik.

Meanwhile, Sharik falls under the influence of the communist activist Shvonder, who inspired him that he is a proletarian suffering from oppression by the bourgeoisie (in the person of Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Dr. Bormenthal), and turned him against the professor.

Shvonder, being the chairman of the house committee, gives Sharik documents in the name of Polygraph   Poligrafovich   Sharikov, arranging him to work in the service for trapping and destroying homeless animals (in “cleaning”) and forcing the professor to officially register Sharikov in his apartment. In the "cleaning" service, Sharikov quickly makes a career, becoming the boss. Under bad influence Shvonder, having superficially read communist literature and feeling like the "master of the situation", Sharikov begins to be rude to the professor, behave cheekily at home, steal things with money and pester servants. In the end, it comes to the fact that Sharikov writes a false denunciation of the professor and doctor Bormental. This denunciation only thanks to the doctor's influential patient does not reach law enforcement agencies. Then Preobrazhensky and Bormental order Sharikov to get out of the apartment, to which he replies with a categorical refusal. The doctor and the professor, unable to endure the impudent and impudent antics of Polygraph Poligrafovich and expecting only the worsening of the situation, decide to perform a reverse operation and transplant the canine pituitary gland to Sharikov, after which he gradually begins to lose his human appearance and again turns into a dog ...

Characters

Data

A number of Bulgakov scholars believe that The Heart of a Dog was a political satire on the leadership of the state in the mid-1920s. In particular, that Sharikov-Chugunkin is Stalin (both have an “iron” second surname), prof. Preobrazhensky is Lenin (who transformed the country), his assistant Dr. Bormental, constantly in conflict with Sharikov, is Trotsky (Bronstein), Shvonder - Kamenev, assistant Zina - Zinoviev, Daria - Dzerzhinsky and so on.

Censorship

At the reading of the manuscript of the story during a meeting of writers in Gazetny Lane, an OGPU agent was present, who described the work as follows:

[…] such things, read in the most brilliant Moscow literary circle, are much more dangerous than the useless harmless speeches of writers of the 101st grade at meetings of the All-Russian Union of Poets.

The first edition of The Heart of a Dog contained practically open allusions to a number of political figures of that time, in particular to the Soviet plenipotentiary representative in London, Christian Rakovsky, and a number of other functionaries known in the circles of the Soviet intelligentsia for scandalous love affairs.

Bulgakov hoped to publish "Heart of a Dog" in the Nedra almanac, but the story was recommended not even to be given to Glavlit for reading. Nikolai Angarsky, who liked the work, managed to pass it on to Lev Kamenev, but he said that "this sharp pamphlet on modernity should not be printed under any circumstances." In 1926, during a search in Bulgakov's apartment, the manuscripts of The Heart of a Dog were confiscated and returned to the author only after the petition of Maxim Gorky three years later.

Screen adaptations

Year	Country	Name	Producer	Professor Preobrazhensky	Dr. Bormenthal	Sharikov

The subject of the work

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

The theme of the tragedy of the Russian people is clearly visible in this work, in the "Heart of a Dog" the main characters enter into an irreconcilable conflict among themselves 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 person in the person of Sharikov, leading 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 narration is mainly conducted from Bormental's diary and through the dog's monologue.

Characteristics of the main characters

Sharikov

The character that appeared as a result of the operation from the mongrel Sharik. The transplantation of the pituitary and gonads of the drunkard and rowdy Klim Chugunkin turned a sweet and friendly dog ​​into Polygraph Polygraphych, a parasite and a hooligan.
Sharikov embodies all the negative features of the new society: he spits on the floor, throws cigarette butts, does not know how to use the restroom and constantly swears. But even this is not the worst - Sharikov quickly learned to write denunciations and found a calling in the murder of 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.

This is the low power of the people and Bulgakov saw a threat to the whole society in the rudeness and narrow-mindedness with which the new revolutionary government solves issues.

Professor Preobrazhensky

An experimenter who uses innovative developments in solving the problem of rejuvenation through organ transplants. He is a well-known world scientist, a surgeon respected by all, whose "speaking" surname gives him the right to experiment with nature.

Used to live in a big way - servants, a house of seven rooms, chic dinners. His patients are former nobles and the highest revolutionary officials who patronize him.

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

Rejuvenation surgery unexpected result The dog has turned into a human. But the man came out completely useless, not amenable to education and absorbing the worst. Philipp Philippovich concludes that nature is not a field for experiments, and he interfered in its laws in vain.

Dr. Bormenthal

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

The young doctor tried in every possible way to culturally develop Sharikov, and then moved to the professor altogether, as it became more and more difficult to cope with a 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 rigidity, 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 dignity. Bulgakov described himself and his relatives in many of the features of both doctors, and in many respects would have acted the same way as they did.

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 sees in Sharikov 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 the rights in Preobrazhensky's apartment and teaches him to write denunciations. The chairman of the house committee, because of his narrow-mindedness and lack of education, always hesitates and passes 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 Bormental, 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 second operation to turn Sharikov into a dog, when they were on the side of the doctors and exactly followed all their instructions.

You got acquainted with the characterization of the heroes of Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog", a fantastic satire that anticipated the collapse of Soviet power immediately after its appearance - the author, back in 1925, showed the whole essence of those revolutionaries and what they are capable of.

Artwork test

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

A little about the author's biography

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

Prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky

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

In 1926, the OGPU searched the writer's house, and as a result, the manuscripts of The Heart of a Dog and the diary were seized.

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

All of them are opposed by Professor Preobrazhensky, whose quotes deserve special attention. This surgeon and scientist, who is a luminary Russian science, appears for the first time at the moment when in the story the dog, the future Sharikov, dies in the city gateway - hungry and cold, with a burned side. The professor appears at the most painful hours for a dog. The dog's thoughts "voice" Preobrazhensky as a gentleman of culture, with an intelligent beard and mustache, like the French knights.

Experiment

The main business of Professor Preobrazhensky is to treat people, to look for new ways to achieve longevity and effective means of rejuvenation. Of course, like any scientist, he could not live without experiments. He picks up the dog, and at the same time a plan is born in the doctor's head: he decides to perform 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, which was given the nickname Sharik, becomes a person and receives documents for the surname Sharikov. Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Bormental are trying to instill in him worthy and noble human manners. However, their "education" does not bring any visible results.

Transformation into a human

Preobrazhensky expresses his opinion to the assistant Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental: it is necessary to understand the whole horror, consisting in the fact that Sharikov no longer has a dog's heart, but a human one, moreover, "the lousiest of all that exists in nature."

Bulgakov created a parody of the socialist revolution, described the clash of two classes, in which Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky is a professor and an intellectual, and the working class is Sharikov and his ilk.

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

Domkom

Shvonder is a separate instance of the proletarian class, he and his company make up the house committee in the house where Preobrazhensky, the experimental professor, lives. They, however, seriously undertook to fight with him. But that one is also not so simple, Professor Preobrazhensky's monologue about the devastation in the minds says that he simply hates the proletariat and its interests, and as long as he has the opportunity to devote himself to his favorite business (science), he will be indifferent to petty swindlers and swindlers like Shvonder.

But with his household Sharikov, he enters into a serious struggle. If Shvonder presses purely outwardly, then you can’t just disown Sharikov, because it is he who is the product of his scientific activity and the production of a failed experiment. Sharikov brings such confusion and devastation to his house that in two weeks the professor experienced more stress than in all his years.

Image

However, the image of Professor Preobrazhensky is very curious. No, he is by no means the embodiment of virtue. He, like any person, has his shortcomings, he is a rather selfish, narcissistic, conceited, but lively and real person. Preobrazhensky became the image of a real intellectual, fighting alone against the devastation that the generation of Sharikovs brings. Isn't this fact 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 hung everywhere with promises of a brighter future for people. An even more depressing mood is caused by bad, cold, inclement weather and the homeless image of a dog that, like most Soviet people of a new country under construction, literally survives and is in constant search of warmth and food.

It is in this chaos that one of the few intellectuals Preobrazhensky, a professor-aristocrat, who survived in a period of dangerous and difficult times, appears. Sharikov's character, still in his dog body, assessed him in his own way: that he "eats plentifully and does not steal, will not kick with his foot, and is not afraid of anyone, because he is always full."

Two sides

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

However, the house committee began an intensified struggle against the professor and wished to take away his apartment from him. In the end, after all, the proletarians did not manage to harm the professor, and therefore this fact could not but please 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 very attractive picture. The wealth that main character Bulgakov, Professor Preobrazhensky, it must be said, he also did not suddenly fall on his head and was not inherited from wealthy relatives. He made his own wealth. And now he serves people who have received power into their own hands, because now it is their time to enjoy all the benefits.

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 cancer necks.” But the professor, despite all his high morality, intelligence and sensitivity, does not try to reason with 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 sorts of dishes like sausages not from Mosselprom or caviar spread on crispy fresh bread.

In the work, Professor Preobrazhensky uses a dog's heart for his experiment. It's not out of love for animals that he picks up exhausted dog to feed or warm, but because, as it seems to him, a brilliant, but monstrous plan for him was born in his head. And then this operation is described in detail in the book, which causes only unpleasant emotions. 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 speaking surname and the status of his hero - Preobrazhensky, a professor who implants the cerebellum of a recidivist thief Klimka into a dog that has fallen into his hands. This has borne fruit, side effects the professor did not expect.

Professor Preobrazhensky's phrases 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 master 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, slashed and now they disdain, and he, by the way, did not give his permission for the operation and can sue. And, what is most interesting, no one notices the truth behind his words.

Teacher and educator

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

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

Professor Preobrazhensky: "Devastation in the minds"

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

Famous quotes of Professor Preobrazhensky

In general, the book "Heart of a Dog" 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 reflections.

“The one who is in no hurry anywhere succeeds everywhere.”

Why was the carpet removed? front staircase? What, Karl Marx forbids keeping carpets on the stairs?

- "Humanity itself takes care of this and in the evolutionary order every year stubbornly creates dozens of outstanding geniuses from the mass of all sorts of filth, decorating the globe."

- "What is this devastation of yours? An old woman with a stick? The witch who broke all the windows, put out all the lamps?"

Recently, rhetoric using the figures of Preobrazhensky and Sharikov has again become more active in Runet. On this topic, the most different people- from Ksyusha Sobchak to Lyudmila Petranovskaya. Often with wild distortions of Bulgakov's plot. It’s too lazy to give links, who wants to find it, but now I’m not going to discuss specific texts by specific authors, but the aberration that our perception of Bulgakov’s novel has undergone.
This aberration developed back in perestroika and still sets the tone. Regardless of whether they sympathize with Preobrazhensky or, on the contrary, debunk him as a snob and a cynic (such a revisionist approach has also appeared recently). And it consists in this: "The Heart of a Dog" is stubbornly read as a parable about the Intelligentsia and the People, or, even worse, as a story about "white bone vs. cattle."
I would like to somehow immediately doubt whether Bulgakov had this in mind. Firstly, it must be recalled that Bulgakov, unlike the couch theorists of the problem of the Intelligentsia and the People, literally touched this “people” with his hands - he sewed up wounds to this “people”, took birth and treated syphilis. When he worked as a rural doctor. See the cycle of stories on this topic. Secondly, in the novel there are obvious and undoubted representatives of the "people" Zina and Daria Petrovna - quite positive characters who in conflict situations for some reason invariably identify with Preobrazhensky and Bormental, and not with Sharikov. (Is it a coincidence that Daria Petrovna's modeling of cutlets is described in the same energetic style of Sturm und Drang as the operation performed by the professor?).
But this is so, the seed. The real problem is that Heart of a Dog is 60 years too late for its reader. Manuscripts do not burn, but, alas, fade with time. And what contemporaries read easily, the descendants require a paleograph. By the 1980s, there were no more readers who understood the social reality in which Bulgakov lived. But the era of the craze for aristocracy has come - without a clear understanding of what it actually means.
The Soviet intelligentsia began to secretly sigh for elitism back in the Brezhnev era - it was such a half-permitted discourse of nostalgia for fans, crinolines and officers in white uniforms. In perestroika, the semi-permitted became open and almost official. The revival of the aristocracy was declared an urgent need; the role of the new aristocracy, the perestroika intelligentsia, of course, predicted itself. Moreover, she really sincerely did not understand the differences between different categories of people in starched shirts. In this, her view of Preobrazhensky is no different from the view of the ill-fated Sharikov, only that hostility has been replaced by enthusiasm.
I propose to find out who the real Professor Preobrazhensky is.
In essence, for Bulgakov's generation, one surname said everything. Of all the possible social strata, only one variant could have such a surname - a popovich. Only graduates of seminaries were given surnames in honor of religious holidays. That is, Preobrazhensky, like Bulgakov himself, a native of the clergy, who became a doctor.
Move on. Where did the ranks of the clergy come from in pre-revolutionary Russia? Definitely not from the aristocracy. The nobles did not go to the seminary (I don’t know how late XIX in., and in the beginning it was even legally prohibited). The children of wealthy merchants also, as a rule, did not go, since it was extremely unprestigious - why, if the father provides a place in business? The occupancy of seminaries was carried out mainly at the expense of peasants and poor townspeople. Therefore, by the way, they came up with surnames for them - because many peasants often did not even have surnames when they came to study.
That is - think about it - the great-grandfather of Professor Preobrazhensky, perhaps, was such a ball. Grandfather entered the seminary and became a priest, while his grandson became a professor... For the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. pretty typical story. It turns out that there is not such a social gap between Preobrazhensky and Sharikov.
And about his attitude towards the aristocracy, the professor spoke clearly:

Note, Ivan Arnoldovich, only the landlords, who were not cut short by the Bolsheviks, eat cold appetizers and soup. A little self-respecting person operates with hot snacks.

It is clear that this is a joke. But the sociological context is unambiguous. It can be seen that the professor does not sympathize with the landowners, who were cut down by the Bolsheviks at all (they are dear there), and that the landowner and a self-respecting person for him are two things incompatible. For some reason, none of Bulgakov's commentators pay attention to this phrase. And it is highly logical: the professor is a raznochinets and thinks like a raznochinets.
But everyone paid attention to the phrase "I do not like the proletariat." In the 80s, it aroused admiration as a fronde of unthinkable courage (everyone was so tired of the talk about the proletariat). Now the professors began to bite and kick for her: they say, he forgot the covenants of the great Russian tradition of sympathy for the humiliated and offended.
Let us, however, remember that Preobrazhensky is a physician. That is, a connoisseur of Latin - in that era, the ability to freely read Latin for doctors was mandatory, you are not here here. And for him, as for a person who in Latin is like a fish in water, the original, pejorative meaning of the word "proletarius" - "breeding" is quite obvious and transparent. Lumpen, who is needed only for cannon fodder, because he can do nothing but multiply. Naturally, a professor cannot love the "proletariat". The comedy of the dialogue between the professor and the red commissars lies in the fact that the participants attach different meanings to the word "proletariat". The commissars, unaware of the Latin meaning of this word, which they learned from agitation, think that it means "worker" - and are offended: they say, this bourgeois with glasses does not like workers.
Thus, to interpret the history of Preobrazhensky and Sharikov as the history of the "elite and cattle" is at least superficial. What, then, is this story about?
I think about exactly what Preobrazhensky and Bormental are talking about on the eve of the denouement - about an attempt to get around natural evolution, and there is no allegory here. Although this may not be obvious to Soviet and post-Soviet intellectuals, but Preobrazhensky, unlike them (as well as from the undercut landowners), did not receive an apartment and position either by inheritance or by blasphemy. He achieved everything by his own efforts - it is not for nothing that he angrily corrects that he does not just live in seven rooms, but lives AND WORK in seven rooms. And before him, his ancestor, who received an education, instead of remaining in the environment of the ball ones, made a strong-willed effort to climb. Thus, exactly one thing distinguishes the professor from Klim Chugunkin: the professor is the result of a positive selection, and Klim is a negative one. (It seems to me that Bulgakov's evolutionary process is not blind - the will to self-development plays a significant role in it).
It is ridiculous to believe that the professor did not know that the dog would turn into a man - if he really had conceived only a new experience in rejuvenation, he would have taken tissues from a puppy, and not from Klim. He was playing it safe, he was afraid that it would not work out - he did not even tell Bormental about the true purpose of the experiment (quite normal shyness of a scientist). But the lack of education of the result of the experiment really turned out to be unexpected. I had to make sure that nothing good can be done from the product of negative selection in one generation.
Bulgakov actually turned the collision of "Frankentstein" inside out. For him, the artificial man becomes dangerous precisely because of the will to develop and the growth of self-consciousness (he begins to read books on philosophy and pose uncomfortable questions). Compared to the demonic character Shelley, Sharikov is a small creature that seems purely comical at first. But (this is a favorite move of modernist literature) the cockroaches in the minds are even more terrible than the tigers in the jungle.
And also, interestingly, Preobrazhensky - unlike Frankenstein - does not give up, does not become disillusioned with science and returns to his research. In the final we see him for further study of the brain. Presumably, now he is trying to understand the problem of development.