Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov, Sobach'e serdtse

Roger Cockrell (University of Exeter)

Ed. by Andrei Rogatchevski, UiT - The Arctic University of Norway
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1968

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novella

Resources

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Mikhail Bulgakov’s

Sobach'e serdtse

(

The Heart of a Dog

), written in early 1925 but not published in Soviet Russia until 1987, shows the author honing the satirical powers and sharpness of characterization that were to become such a feature of his novel

Master i Margarita

(

The Master and Margarita

), on which he was to begin work at the end of the 1920s. The story centres on a scientific experiment that goes disastrously wrong. A professor of medicine who runs a Moscow clinic using “scientific methods” to rejuvenate patients, gives a home to a stray dog, Sharik, whose trust he wins over by a kindly attitude and the provision of food. On the death of one of his patients, the professor, Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky (from the Russian for “transfiguration”), subjects Sharik to…

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1067 words

Citation: Cockrell, Roger. "Sobach'e serdtse". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 July 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=22986, accessed 26 April 2024.]

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