The Heart of a Dog

A luminary of world science, Professor Filipp Filippovich saves a homeless dog, Sharik, from death in order to carry out an experiment to identify the functions of the pituitary gland. Contrary to expectations, it turns out that the pituitary does not provide the scientists with the anticipated rejuvenation, but instead brings about a complete humanization. Soon, traits of the donor begin to show in Sharik’s behavior: those of Klim Chugunkin—a cowardly drunk and a hooligan. This “new human unit” throws the professor’s apartment into chaos, revealing the most vicious sides of human nature. At the same time, socialist reality eagerly accepts Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov, thereby only accelerating his degradation and indulging his base instincts.

In “The Heart of a Dog,” Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov illustrates, through his characters, two sides: a dying type represented by the educated elite and the proletariat rebelling against it. The work is filled with deep irony and satire on the new trends spreading across Russia in the early twentieth century…