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Comic and tragic in the work of a dog's heart. Tragic and comic in stories m

Description of work

The purpose of this work is to study the comic and tragic in M. Bulgakov's stories "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs".
In accordance with the goal, the following tasks of the research are defined:
1. Study the literature on this topic;
2. Consider the works of M. Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs" from the point of view of expressing the aesthetic categories "tragic" "comic" in them;
3. Based on the study, draw conclusions about the aesthetic categories of tragic and comic in the stories "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs"

Introduction…………………………………………………………………...3
Chapter 1. Aesthetic categories "comic" and "tragic"
1.1. Aesthetic category "comic"……………………………..5
1.2. Aesthetic category "tragic"…………………………….7
1.3. Ways of expressing the comic and tragic……………....8
Chapter 2
2.1. Comic and tragic in the story “Heart of a Dog”…………………………………………………………………............ ....10
2.2. Comic and tragic in the story "Fatal Eggs"………….15
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………...19
Bibliographic list…………………………………………..…20

The work contains 1 file

2.1. Comic and tragic in the story "Heart of a Dog"

Speaking about aesthetic categories, it should be noted that both in life and in artistic creativity they are in a complex and flexible relationship and mutual transitions. The tragic and the comic in the story do not exist in their pure form, but turning one into the other, combining with each other, and the contrast that arises between them further enhances the effect of both. That is why the writer uses this technique in his works.

Using the principles of "fantastic realism" and the grotesque, mixing the reality of NEP Russia and original fiction, the writer creates a fascinating and sinister story. The theme of disharmony, brought to the point of absurdity due to human intervention in the eternal laws of nature, is revealed by Bulgakov with brilliant skill and talent in a story whose intention is unusual, it combines the comic and the tragic.

One of the main characters of "The Heart of a Dog" - Professor Preobrazhensky - is an intellectual, a surgeon, a man of high culture, well educated. He critically perceives everything that has been happening since March 1917:

“Why, when this whole story began, did everyone start walking in dirty galoshes and felt boots up the marble stairs? Why was the carpet removed from the front stairs? Why the hell did they remove the flowers from the playgrounds? If, as I enter the restroom, I start, pardon the expression, pissing past the toilet […] there will be devastation. […] devastation is not in the closets, but in the heads” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 300-301].

The professor's views have much in common with the views of the author. Both of them are skeptical about the revolution and oppose terror and the proletariat: “It is a citizen, not a comrade, and even - most likely - a master”, “Yes, I do not like the proletariat”, “...they are still hesitantly buttoning up their pants! » [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 296, 301]. Preobrazhensky considers the proletarians stupid, narrow-minded.

There are many examples of the fact that M.A. Bulgakov definitely hates and despises the entire Soviet system, denies all its achievements. But there are few such professors, the Sharikovs and Shvonders are the vast majority. Is this not a tragedy for Russia? According to the professor, people need to be taught elementary culture in everyday life, at work, in relationships, then the devastation will disappear by itself, there will be peace and order. And this should not be done with terror: “You can't do anything with terror”, “They think in vain that terror will help them. No-sir, no-sir, it won't help, no matter what it is: white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyzes the nervous system” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 289]. It is necessary to act with kindness, persuasion and your own example. Preobrazhensky recognizes that the only cure for ruin is the provision of order, when everyone can do their own thing: “Policeman! This and only this! And it doesn’t matter at all whether he will be with a badge or in a red cap” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 302]. But this philosophy of his suffers a tragic collapse, because even he himself cannot bring up a reasonable person in Sharikov. What are the reasons for the failure of a brilliant experiment? Why didn't Sharik develop further under the influence of two educated and cultured people? The fact is that Sharikov is a type of a certain environment. The creature's actions are determined by the dog's instincts and Klim's genes. The contrast between the intellectual beginning of Preobrazhensky and Bormental and the instincts of Sharikov is so striking that it turns from the comic into the grotesque and paints the story in tragic tones.

Here is a creature, while still a dog, ready to lick the professor's boots and exchange freedom for a piece of sausage. “More, I still lick your hand. I kiss my pants, my benefactor!”, “I’m going, sir, I’m in a hurry. Bok, if you please, makes himself known. Let me lick my boot”, “Beat, just don’t kick me out of the apartment”, “Sir, if you saw what this sausage is made of, you would not come close to the store. Give it to me" [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 277-278]. Sharik is content with a small, ordinary "happiness", like many people in the early 1920s who began to get used to living in unheated apartments, eating rotten corned beef in the Councils of normal nutrition, getting pennies and not being surprised at the lack of electricity.

Having received help from the professor and settled in his apartment, the dog begins to grow in his own eyes: “I am a handsome man. Perhaps an unknown incognito canine prince. [...] It is very possible that my grandmother sinned with the diver. That's what I look at - I have a white spot on my face. Where does it come from, you ask? Filipp Filippovich is a man with great taste, he will not take the first mongrel dog that comes across” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 304]. But the thoughts of this dog are dictated only by the conditions of life and its origin.

Even as a dog, Sharik understood the tragedy of people, their decline in morals: “I'm tired of my Matryona, I've been tormented with flannel pants, now my time has come. I am now the chairman, and no matter how much I steal - everything, everything for the female body, for cancer necks, for Abrau-Durso! Because I was hungry enough in my youth, it will be with me, and the afterlife does not exist! [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 276]. The dog's reasoning causes a smile, but this is just a grotesque covered with a thin layer of comedy.

And then "the master's dog, an intelligent creature," as Sharik called himself, who closed his eyes in shame in the professor's office, turned into a close-minded boor and drunkard Klim Chugunkin.

The first words that this creature says are vulgar swearing, the lexicon of the lower strata of society: “He says a lot of words ... and all the swear words that only exist in the Russian lexicon”, “This swearing is methodical, continuous and, apparently, meaningless” , “... an event: for the first time, the words uttered by the creature were not cut off from the surrounding phenomena, but were a reaction to them. It was when the professor ordered him: “Don’t throw leftovers on the floor,” he unexpectedly answered: “Get off, nit” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 318, 320-322]. He is unsympathetic in appearance, gaudily dressed, and pristine in relation to any culture. Sharikov, by all means, wants to break into people, but does not understand that for this it is necessary to go a long way of development, it takes work, work on oneself, mastering knowledge.

Sharikov becomes a participant in the revolutionary process, the way he ideally approaches him, perceives his ideas, in 1925 looked like a vicious satire on the process and its participants. Two weeks after he turned into a man, he has a document proving his identity, although in fact he is not a person, which is what the professor expresses: “So he said?”, “That does not mean to be man" [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 310]. A week later, Sharikov is already a petty official, but his nature remains the same as it was - dog-criminal. What is one of his messages about the work: "Yesterday cats were strangled, strangled." But what kind of satire is this, if thousands of people like Sharikov, after a few years, also “strangled, strangled” non-cats - people, workers, who had not been guilty of anything before the revolution?

Polygraph Polygraphich becomes a threat to the professor and the inhabitants of his apartment, and indeed to the whole society as a whole. Referring to his proletarian origin, he demands from the professor documents, living space, freedoms, and snaps at fair remarks: “Something you are oppressing me, daddy.” The terminology of the ruling class appears in his speech: “In our time, everyone has his own right”, “I am not a master, gentlemen are all in Paris” [Bulgakov, 1990, p.327-328].

On Schwonder's advice, Poligraf Poligrafovich tries to master Engels's correspondence with Kautsky and sums up his very comic line under it, following the principle of universal leveling, which he learned from what he read: "Take everything and divide it up." Of course, this sounds ridiculous, which the professor notes: “And you, in the presence of two people with a university education, allow yourself” ... “to give some advice on a cosmic scale and cosmic stupidity on how to share everything ...” [Bulgakov, 1990, With. 330]; but wasn't that what the leadership of the young republic did, equalizing the benefits of honest peasants, working hard, and such lazy people as Chugunkin? What awaits Russia with such Sharikovs, Chugunkins and Shvonders? Bulgakov was one of the first to understand that she would come to a tragic end. This is the tragicomism of Bulgakov: to make the reader laugh and cry at the peak of laughter. It should also be noted that "Sharikovism" is obtained only as a result of "Shvonder's" education.

Polygraph Poligrafych brings suspicious personalities to the living space allocated to him in the professor's apartment. The patience of the inhabitants of the apartment runs out, and the Polygraph, feeling threatened, becomes dangerous. He disappears from the apartment, and then appears in it in a different form: “He was wearing a leather jacket from someone else’s shoulder, worn leather trousers and English high boots with lacing up to the knees.” The view is quite comical, but behind it lies the image of an employee of the GPU, now he is the head of the sub-department for cleaning the city of Moscow from stray animals (cats, etc.) in the department of the Moscow House of Artists. And here we can see the imminent tragedy. Feeling the taste of power, Polygraph roughly uses it. He brings the bride to the house, and after the professor explains to her the essence of the Polygraph, and the unfortunate lady leaves, he threatens to take revenge on her: “Well, you will remember me. Tomorrow I will arrange a reduction in staff for you” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 363]. Bulgakov poses the question point-blank no longer of whether there will be a tragic ending or not, but asks about the extent of the tragedy to which Russia will be subjected.

Inspired by Shvonder, the offended Sharikov writes a denunciation of his creator: “... threatening to kill the chairman of the house committee, comrade Shvonder, from which it is clear that he keeps firearms. And he makes counter-revolutionary speeches, and even ordered Engels […] to be burned in the stove, like an obvious Menshevik...”, “The crime matured and fell like a stone, as it usually happens”, “Sharikov himself invited his death” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. .365]. At the request of Philip Philipovich to leave the apartment, he answered with a decisive refusal and pointed a revolver at Dr. Bormenthal. Having undergone a reverse operation, Sharik does not remember anything and keeps thinking that he was "so lucky, just indescribably lucky" [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 369]. And Bulgakov brightens up the tragic ending with a comical note: Sharik is finally convinced of his unusual origin and that such prosperity came to him for a reason.

2.2 Comic and tragic in the story "Fatal Eggs"

The stories "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs" are different, and at the same time they have something in common. They are, as it were, connected, permeated with a single pain and anxiety - for a person. Coincides in a number of parameters and their artistic design. In essence, each contains a dilemma: Rokk - Persikov ("Fatal Eggs"), Sharikov - Preobrazhensky ("Dog's Heart").

The red ray, accidentally discovered by the professor, is very similar to the ray of the revolution, which overturns all the foundations of the existence of society in general and of each person in particular. Outwardly, it looks like a joke, a witty invention of the writer. Persikov, adjusting the microscope for work, unexpectedly discovered that with a special position of the mirrors, a red beam appears, which, as it soon turns out, has an amazing effect on living organisms: they become incredibly active, evil, multiply rapidly and grow to enormous sizes. Even the most harmless amoebas become aggressive predators under the influence of the beam. It became crowded in the red band, and then in the entire disk, and the inevitable struggle began. The reborn lashed out at each other furiously, tore to shreds, and swallowed. Among the born lay the corpses of those who died in the struggle for existence. The best and strongest won. And these best ones were terrible... The struggle for survival resembles a revolutionary struggle in which there is no place for pity and in which the winners begin to fight each other for more influence and power. The revolutionary process, according to Bulgakov, does not always benefit the people and brings them good. It can be fraught with catastrophically difficult consequences for society, because it awakens tremendous energy not only in honest, thinking people who are aware of their enormous responsibility for the future, but also in people who are narrow-minded, ignorant, such as Alexander Semenovich Rokk.

Sometimes it is precisely such people that the revolution elevates to unprecedented heights, and the lives of millions of people already depend on them. But a cook cannot govern the state, no matter how much some would like to prove the opposite. And the power of such people, combined with self-confidence and ignorance, leads to a national tragedy. All this is extremely clearly and realistically shown in the story.

In fact, before the revolution, Rokk was just a modest flutist from the Petukhov orchestra in the city of Odessa. But the “great year 1917” and the revolutionary events that followed it abruptly changed the fate of Rocca, making it fatal: “it turned out that this man is positively great”, and his active nature did not calm down in the position of director of the state farm, but led him to the idea of reviving the chicken livestock , exterminated by pestilence, with the help of a red ray discovered by Persikov. But Rokk is an ignorant and self-confident person, he does not even imagine what careless handling of a new, unknown scientific discovery can lead to. And as a result, instead of giant chickens, he breeds giant reptiles, which leads to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, including his wife Mani, whom he obviously loved.

At first glance, it may seem that all the misfortunes are caused by the fact that someone mixed up the boxes with eggs and sent to the state farm not chicken eggs, but reptile eggs (reptiles, as they are called in the story). Yes, indeed, there are a lot of accidents and coincidences of incredible circumstances in the plot of the story: Persikov’s discovery itself, made only because he was distracted while setting up the microscope, and the chicken plague that came from nowhere, which destroyed all the chickens in Soviet Russia, but for some reason stopped on its borders, and an eighteen-degree frost in mid-August, which saved Moscow from the invasion of reptiles, and much more.

The author does not seem to care at all about at least a minimum of plausibility. But these are only visible “accidents”, each of them has its own logic, its own symbolism. For example, why did the terrible events that led to mass casualties take place precisely in 1928? An accidental coincidence or a tragic prediction of the future terrible famine in Ukraine in 1930 and the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” with complete collectivization, which led to the death of millions of people? Or what kind of bastards are so rapidly multiplying in NEP Russia under the influence of the red ray? Perhaps the new bourgeoisie, which was then also completely "liquidated"? There are many such coincidences in the story, and this makes it a prophetic work.

"Fatal Eggs" is not just satirical fiction, it is a warning. A deeply thoughtful and disturbing warning against excessive enthusiasm for a long time, in essence, an open red ray - a revolutionary process, revolutionary methods of building a "new life".

In the depths of incredibly funny stories, tragedy is hidden, sad thoughts about human shortcomings and instincts that sometimes guide them, about the responsibility of a scientist and about the terrible power of self-satisfied ignorance. The topics are eternal, relevant, and have not lost their significance even today.

Conclusion

In this course work, the comic and tragic were considered as aesthetic categories in the stories of M. A. Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs", the nature, purpose of their use and means of expression were analyzed.

The genre of satire, in which "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs" are written, makes it possible for the author, who allowed the reader to laugh, to make him cry at the peak of laughter. The comic in these works is only a very thin upper layer, barely covering the tragedy rushing out. "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs" are very characteristic works in this respect. However, in them the ratio of the funny and the tragic is very uneven, since an insignificant part of the external event line belongs to the first. All other faces are the priority of the second.

Ministry of Education and Science of Russia
federal state budgetary educational institution
higher professional education
"Irkutsk State Linguistic University"

Department of Russian Language, Literature and Linguistics

TRAGIC AND COMIC IN M. BULGAKOV'S STORIES "A DOG'S HEART" and "FATAL EGGS"

Course work

Performed):
student(s) of group FOB1-10-01
Faculty of Humanities and Education
directions of training (specialty)
050300.62 Philological education
Bykova Victoria Eduardovna
Scientific adviser:
P. I. Boldakov, Ph.D. n., dean
Faculty of Humanities and Education

Irkutsk 2011
Content

Introduction…………………………………………………………………...3

1.1. Aesthetic category "comic"……………………………..5
1.2. Aesthetic category "tragic"…………………………….7
1.3. Ways of expressing the comic and tragic……………....8
Chapter 2
2.1. Comic and tragic in the story "Heart of a Dog" ....10
2.2. Comic and tragic in the story "Fatal Eggs"………….15
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………...19
Bibliographic list…………………………………………..…20

Introduction
In 1925, Mikhail Bulgakov wrote the novels "Fatal Eggs" and "The Heart of a Dog", which we never cease to be amazed at today and which we constantly re-read with rapture. They combine three genre and art forms: fantasy, social dystopia and satirical pamphlet. Bulgakov belongs to the category of writers who, using comic techniques, depict the tragedy of life. For all the fantastic nature of the stories, they are distinguished by amazing credibility, which speaks of the greatness and originality of the writer's skill.
The relevance of the topic of this course work is due to the undying interest in the work of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, as well as insufficient research into the problems of reflecting the comic and tragic in the writer's works. These categories occupy an important place among aesthetic categories and have long been in the field of view of philosophers, literary critics and philologists. These phenomena in the literature appear to be complex and ambiguous, and the concepts of “comic”, “tragic” and their theoretical understanding have attracted the attention of researchers from antiquity (Aristotle) to the present day (B. Dzemidok, V. Ya. Propp, Yu. B. Borev).
The purpose of this work is to study the comic and tragic in M. Bulgakov's stories "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs".
In accordance with the goal, the following tasks of the research are defined:
1. Study the literature on this topic;
2. Consider the works of M. Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs" from the point of view of expressing the aesthetic categories "tragic" "comic" in them;
3. Based on the study, draw conclusions about the aesthetic categories of tragic and comic in the stories "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs"
The object of the study was the works of M. Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs", considered in the aspect of manifestation of the aesthetic categories of comic and tragic in them.
The subject of the research is tragic and comic as aesthetic categories in the stories "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs".
The practical significance lies in the use of coursework in the preparation of reports, in the work at seminars and in conducting further scientific research.
The logic of the study determined the structure of the course work, consisting of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a bibliographic list. Chapter 1 - theoretical - is devoted to the aesthetic categories of the tragic and the comic, the ways of their expression. Chapter 2 - practical - considers the expression of these aesthetic categories in M. Bulgakov's stories "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs". In conclusion, the results of the study are presented.

Chapter 1. Aesthetic categories "comic" and "tragic"
1.1. Aesthetic category "comic"
All existing theories (Classical theory (Bergson, Gauthier); psychological direction, including cognitive (Kant, A. Koestler, V. Raskin, S. Attardo) and biosocial (J. Sally and L. Robinson) approaches) consider the comic as purely objective property of an object, or as a result of a person's subjective abilities, or as a result of the relationship between the subject and the object [Borev, 1970, p. 5].
So what is "comic"?
To understand the comic nature of a phenomenon, the active work of human thought is required, in other words, the comic is focused on an educated and intelligent person, it leaves the viewer and reader to think, as Henri Bergson wrote, “It appeals to pure reason” [Bergson, 1992, p. eleven].
Y. Borev in the book "Comic" calls him "the beautiful sister of the funny." It's safe to say that the comic is funny, but not all funny is comic. Laughter can be caused by both comic and any other, most stupid phenomena. The comic is read between the lines, as Belinsky noted: “No, gentlemen! The comic and the funny are not always the same thing... The elements of the comic are hidden in reality as it is, and not in caricatures, not in exaggerations” [Borev, 1970, p. 10-12].
The line between funny and comical is hard to distinguish. One and the same phenomenon in some circumstances can act as funny, and in others - as comic. A phenomenon is comical, in which the discrepancy between its “true purpose” is revealed in a deliberate form, when a specific goal appears, and laughter becomes objective.
Often the comic criticizes modernity, it exists in everyday life. Anri Bergson believed that laughter should meet the well-known requirements of people living together [Bergson, 1992, p. 14-16], i.e., true laughter is modern, topical, and also humane.
Comedy requires originality. In a comic image, the subjective principle is always especially developed, it absorbs the experience of its creator, therefore a high degree of originality of humor and satire arises.
Humor, satire and irony are the main categories of the comic. Humor is friendly laughter, although not toothless. It improves the phenomenon, cleanses it of its shortcomings, helps to reveal more fully all that is socially valuable in it. The object of humor, deserving criticism, retains its appeal. Thus, humor is a light mockery used to cause laughter, to cheer.
It is a different matter when not individual features are negative, but a phenomenon in its essence, when it is socially dangerous and capable of causing serious damage to society. Here there is no time for friendly laughter, and scourging, incriminating, satirical laughter is born. Satire denies, executes the imperfection of the world in the name of its radical transformation in accordance with the ideal. The authors use satire to correct the phenomenon. The stories "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs" are written in the genre of satire, and M.A. Bulgakov's satire is a multifaceted, multi-level artistic and aesthetic system [Gigineshvili, 2007, electronic resource, URL: http://www.gramota.net/ materials/1/2007/3-1/24.html].
Irony is a clearly feigned image of a negative phenomenon in a positive way, so that by bringing to the point of absurdity the very possibility of a positive assessment to ridicule and discredit the phenomenon, to draw attention to its shortcoming, which in an ironic image is a virtue. According to the candidate of philosophical sciences T.A. Medvedeva, irony is understood as follows: “In the minds of most people of European culture, this concept is associated with mockery, skepticism, denial, criticism” [Medvedeva, 2007, p. 3-5, 218-222]. Thus, irony is a hidden mockery.
So, the comic is one of the most complex and diverse categories of aesthetics. By "comic" is meant both natural (that is, appearing independently of someone's intention) events, objects and the relationships that arise between them, as well as a certain type of creativity, the essence of which comes down to the conscious construction of a certain system of phenomena or concepts, as well as a system of words with intended to cause a comic effect.

1.2. Aesthetic category "tragic"
“Tragic” is a category of aesthetics that reflects an insoluble contradiction generated by the collision of human freedom with the necessity inherent in the very world order. The existence of the tragic is connected with the development of a free personal beginning in man. Most often, situations and circumstances that unfold in the process of interaction between freedom and necessity and are accompanied by human suffering, death and the destruction of values important to life become the source of tragedy.
In tragedy, as a dramatic genre, that most acute moment is comprehended when the contradiction is brought to the limit, when it is impossible to choose one of the sides of the contradiction from the point of view of higher values.
The contradiction underlying the tragic lies in the fact that a person’s free action realizes an inevitable necessity that destroys him, which overtakes a person exactly where he tried to overcome it or get away from it (the so-called tragic irony). Horror and suffering, which constitute an essential pathetic (suffering) element for the tragic, are tragic not as a result of the intervention of some random external force, but as the consequences of the actions of the person himself.
The tragic always has a certain socio-historical content, which determines the structure of its artistic formation (in particular, in the specificity of the variety of drama - tragedy) [Borev, 1970, p. 108].
So, the tragic is an aesthetic category that implies an insoluble conflict that develops in the process of the hero's free action, accompanied by suffering, the death of himself or his life values.

1.3. Ways of expressing the comic and tragic
The comic in art arises due to the special processing of the phenomena of life. This goal is served by special artistic means: intrigue and exaggeration (hyperbole and grotesque, parody, caricaturing).
A strong means of exposing and ridiculing evil and falsehood can be the actions of a positive hero, the cynicism of a character.
Witnesses, puns and parables, homonyms, contrast (words from different languages, functional styles, rhythm and meaning, tone and content) also serve to create a comic effect.
The tragedy in art arises due to discord, conflict in the mind of the individual.
Each era brings its own features to the understanding of the tragic and emphasizes certain aspects of its nature most prominently.
Tragic art reveals the social meaning of human life and shows that the immortality of man is realized in the immortality of the people.
Thus, the comic can be expressed in tropes, at the level of constructing a phrase, at the level of composition, and the tragic in a clash of interests, a conflict, but sometimes comedy can be in conflict, and tragedy can be reflected in composition.

Chapter 2
M. A. Bulgakov had a multifaceted talent as a prose writer and playwright. He entered the history of Russian literature as the author of stories, novels, novels, comedies and dramas. And it is characteristic that in all these genres the very bright and original talent of Bulgakov the satirist made itself felt. It is important to note that already in his early prose such negative phenomena as philistinism, opportunism, and bureaucracy are denounced. In more mature years of creativity, the satirical talent of the writer acquires greater ideological and artistic maturity. The observant and sensitive artist pays more and more attention to those negative tendencies that made themselves felt in the dominating bureaucratic system of a totalitarian society.
Like other honest artists of the word of the 1920s, such as E. Zamyatin, A. Platonov, B. Pilnyak and others, M. A. Bulgakov was very worried about the clearly revealed tendency of the collective, common principle to replace everything individual, personal - the well-known devaluation of the human personality. It was also difficult for him to come to terms with the vulgar sociology that was being implanted, which demanded from the artist to look for some kind of class conflicts in everything, demanded the "purity" of the proletarian ideology.
Thus, proletarian ideology and revolution became the target of Mikhail Bulgakov's satire. M. A. Bulgakov is not a satirist in its purest form, since in his satirical works a deep tragedy of society is hidden under the comedy, and laughter gives rise to tears. For his satire, Mikhail Afanasyevich was completely banned, he was not hired. In fact, Bulgakov wanted to maintain a neutral position regarding the revolution, as he noted in his letter to the government of the USSR: "... I wanted to stand impassively over the Reds and Whites," however, he "... received a certificate of an enemy White Guard, and, having received it, like anyone understands, can consider himself a finished man in the USSR. Bulgakov was forced to ask for expulsion from the USSR, he asked himself the question: “Do I think in the USSR?” and believed that "... cannot be useful at home, in the fatherland." One can imagine all the confusion and bitterness that seized Bulgakov. After sending a letter to the government, Bulgakov got a job, he was not expelled from the country, but he was also not allowed to create and publish freely. This is the personal tragedy of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. Perhaps, M.A. Bulgakov brought a pure and bright image of Russia out of the old “normal” life - a warm and kind common home, spacious and friendly. The image is nostalgic and irrevocable. The image of war and revolution, alas, revealed the groundlessness of romantic hopes. Russia in real life could not resist the onslaught of the monstrous forces of the historical explosion, and therefore the stories of M. A. Bulgakov are full of tragedy, sadness and pain for the country.

2.1. Comic and tragic in the story "Heart of a Dog"
Speaking about aesthetic categories, it should be noted that both in life and in artistic creativity they are in a complex and flexible relationship and mutual transitions. The tragic and the comic in the story do not exist in their pure form, but turning one into the other, combining with each other, and the contrast that arises between them further enhances the effect of both. That is why the writer uses this technique in his works.
Using the principles of "fantastic realism" and the grotesque, mixing the reality of NEP Russia and original fiction, the writer creates a fascinating and sinister story. The theme of disharmony, brought to the point of absurdity due to human intervention in the eternal laws of nature, is revealed by Bulgakov with brilliant skill and talent in a story whose intention is unusual, it combines the comic and the tragic.
One of the main characters of "The Heart of a Dog" - Professor Preobrazhensky - is an intellectual, a surgeon, a man of high culture, well educated. He critically perceives everything that has been happening since March 1917:
“Why, when this whole story began, did everyone start walking in dirty galoshes and felt boots up the marble stairs? Why was the carpet removed from the front stairs? Why the hell did they remove the flowers from the playgrounds? If, as I enter the restroom, I start, pardon the expression, pissing past the toilet […] there will be devastation. […] devastation is not in the closets, but in the heads” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 300-301].
The professor's views have much in common with the views of the author. Both of them are skeptical about the revolution and oppose terror and the proletariat: “It is a citizen, not a comrade, and even - most likely - a master”, “Yes, I do not like the proletariat”, “...they are still hesitantly buttoning up their pants! » [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 296, 301]. Preobrazhensky considers the proletarians stupid, narrow-minded.
There are many examples of the fact that M.A. Bulgakov definitely hates and despises the entire Soviet system, denies all its achievements. But there are few such professors, the Sharikovs and Shvonders are the vast majority. Is this not a tragedy for Russia? According to the professor, people need to be taught elementary culture in everyday life, at work, in relationships, then the devastation will disappear by itself, there will be peace and order. And this should not be done with terror: “You can't do anything with terror”, “They think in vain that terror will help them. No-sir, no-sir, it won't help, no matter what it is: white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyzes the nervous system” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 289]. It is necessary to act with kindness, persuasion and your own example. Preobrazhensky recognizes that the only cure for ruin is the provision of order, when everyone can do their own thing: “Policeman! This and only this! And it doesn’t matter at all whether he will be with a badge or in a red cap” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 302]. But this philosophy of his suffers a tragic collapse, because even he himself cannot bring up a reasonable person in Sharikov. What are the reasons for the failure of a brilliant experiment? Why didn't Sharik develop further under the influence of two educated and cultured people? The fact is that Sharikov is a type of a certain environment. The creature's actions are determined by the dog's instincts and Klim's genes. The contrast between the intellectual beginning of Preobrazhensky and Bormental and the instincts of Sharikov is so striking that it turns from the comic into the grotesque and paints the story in tragic tones.
Here is a creature, while still a dog, ready to lick the professor's boots and exchange freedom for a piece of sausage. “More, I still lick your hand. I kiss my pants, my benefactor!”, “I’m going, sir, I’m in a hurry. Bok, if you please, makes himself known. Let me lick my boot”, “Beat, just don’t kick me out of the apartment”, “Sir, if you saw what this sausage is made of, you would not come close to the store. Give it to me" [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 277-278]. Sharik is content with a small, ordinary "happiness", like many people in the early 1920s who began to get used to living in unheated apartments, eating rotten corned beef in the Councils of normal nutrition, getting pennies and not being surprised at the lack of electricity.
Having received help from the professor and settled in his apartment, the dog begins to grow in his own eyes: “I am a handsome man. Perhaps an unknown incognito canine prince. [...] It is very possible that my grandmother sinned with the diver. That's what I look at - I have a white spot on my face. Where does it come from, you ask? Filipp Filippovich is a man with great taste, he will not take the first mongrel dog that comes across” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 304]. But the thoughts of this dog are dictated only by the conditions of life and its origin.
Even as a dog, Sharik understood the tragedy of people, their decline in morals: “I'm tired of my Matryona, I've been tormented with flannel pants, now my time has come. I am now the chairman, and no matter how much I steal - everything, everything for the female body, for cancer necks, for Abrau-Durso! Because I was hungry enough in my youth, it will be with me, and the afterlife does not exist! [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 276]. The dog's reasoning causes a smile, but this is just a grotesque covered with a thin layer of comedy.
And then "the master's dog, an intelligent creature," as Sharik called himself, who closed his eyes in shame in the professor's office, turned into a close-minded boor and drunkard Klim Chugunkin.
The first words that this creature says are vulgar swearing, the lexicon of the lower strata of society: “He says a lot of words ... and all the swear words that only exist in the Russian lexicon”, “This swearing is methodical, continuous and, apparently, meaningless” , “... an event: for the first time, the words uttered by the creature were not cut off from the surrounding phenomena, but were a reaction to them. It was when the professor ordered him: “Don’t throw leftovers on the floor,” he unexpectedly answered: “Get off, nit” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 318, 320-322]. He is unsympathetic in appearance, gaudily dressed, and pristine in relation to any culture. Sharikov, by all means, wants to break into people, but does not understand that for this it is necessary to go a long way of development, it takes work, work on oneself, mastering knowledge.
Sharikov becomes a participant in the revolutionary process, the way he ideally approaches him, perceives his ideas, in 1925 looked like a vicious satire on the process and its participants. Two weeks after he turned into a man, he has a document proving his identity, although in fact he is not a person, which is what the professor expresses: “So he said?”, “That does not mean to be man" [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 310]. A week later, Sharikov is already a petty official, but his nature remains the same as it was - dog-criminal. What is one of his messages about the work: "Yesterday cats were strangled, strangled." But what kind of satire is this, if thousands of people like Sharikov, after a few years, also “strangled, strangled” non-cats - people, workers, who had not been guilty of anything before the revolution?
Polygraph Polygraphich becomes a threat to the professor and the inhabitants of his apartment, and indeed to the whole society as a whole. Referring to his proletarian origin, he demands from the professor documents, living space, freedoms, and snaps at fair remarks: “Something you are oppressing me, daddy.” The terminology of the ruling class appears in his speech: “In our time, everyone has his own right”, “I am not a master, gentlemen are all in Paris” [Bulgakov, 1990, p.327-328].
On Schwonder's advice, Poligraf Poligrafovich tries to master Engels's correspondence with Kautsky and sums up his very comic line under it, following the principle of universal leveling, which he learned from what he read: "Take everything and divide it up." Of course, this sounds ridiculous, which the professor notes: “And you, in the presence of two people with a university education, allow yourself” ... “to give some advice on a cosmic scale and cosmic stupidity on how to share everything ...” [Bulgakov, 1990, With. 330]; but wasn't that what the leadership of the young republic did, equalizing the benefits of honest peasants, working hard, and such lazy people as Chugunkin? What awaits Russia with such Sharikovs, Chugunkins and Shvonders? Bulgakov was one of the first to understand that she would come to a tragic end. This is the tragicomism of Bulgakov: to make the reader laugh and cry at the peak of laughter. It should also be noted that "Sharikovism" is obtained only as a result of "Shvonder's" education.
Polygraph Poligrafych brings suspicious personalities to the living space allocated to him in the professor's apartment. The patience of the inhabitants of the apartment runs out, and the Polygraph, feeling threatened, becomes dangerous. He disappears from the apartment, and then appears in it in a different form: “He was wearing a leather jacket from someone else’s shoulder, worn leather trousers and English high boots with lacing up to the knees.” The view is quite comical, but behind it lies the image of an employee of the GPU, now he is the head of the sub-department for cleaning the city of Moscow from stray animals (cats, etc.) in the department of the Moscow House of Artists. And here we can see the imminent tragedy. Feeling the taste of power, Polygraph roughly uses it. He brings the bride to the house, and after the professor explains to her the essence of the Polygraph, and the unfortunate lady leaves, he threatens to take revenge on her: “Well, you will remember me. Tomorrow I will arrange a reduction in staff for you” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 363]. Bulgakov poses the question point-blank no longer of whether there will be a tragic ending or not, but asks about the extent of the tragedy to which Russia will be subjected.
Inspired by Shvonder, the offended Sharikov writes a denunciation of his creator: “... threatening to kill the chairman of the house committee, comrade Shvonder, from which it is clear that he keeps firearms. And he makes counter-revolutionary speeches, and even ordered Engels […] to be burned in the stove, like an obvious Menshevik...”, “The crime matured and fell like a stone, as it usually happens”, “Sharikov himself invited his death” [Bulgakov, 1990, p. .365]. At the request of Philip Philipovich to leave the apartment, he answered with a decisive refusal and pointed a revolver at Dr. Bormenthal. Having undergone a reverse operation, Sharik does not remember anything and keeps thinking that he was "so lucky, just indescribably lucky" [Bulgakov, 1990, p. 369]. And Bulgakov brightens up the tragic ending with a comical note: Sharik is finally convinced of his unusual origin and that such prosperity came to him for a reason.

2.2 Comic and tragic in the story "Fatal Eggs"
The stories "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs" are different, and at the same time they have something in common. They are, as it were, connected, permeated with a single pain and anxiety - for a person. Coincides in a number of parameters and their artistic design. In essence, each contains a dilemma: Rokk - Persikov ("Fatal Eggs"), Sharikov - Preobrazhensky ("Dog's Heart").
The red ray, accidentally discovered by the professor, is very similar to the ray of the revolution, which overturns all the foundations of the existence of society in general and of each person in particular. Outwardly, it looks like a joke, a witty invention of the writer. Persikov, adjusting the microscope for work, unexpectedly discovered that with a special position of the mirrors, a red beam appears, which, as it soon turns out, has an amazing effect on living organisms: they become incredibly active, evil, multiply rapidly and grow to enormous sizes. Even the most harmless amoebas become aggressive predators under the influence of the beam. It became crowded in the red band, and then in the entire disk, and the inevitable struggle began. The reborn lashed out at each other furiously, tore to shreds, and swallowed. Among the born lay the corpses of those who died in the struggle for existence. The best and strongest won. And these best ones were terrible... The struggle for survival resembles a revolutionary struggle in which there is no place for pity and in which the winners begin to fight each other for more influence and power. The revolutionary process, according to Bulgakov, does not always benefit the people and brings them good. It can be fraught with catastrophically difficult consequences for society, because it awakens tremendous energy not only in honest, thinking people who are aware of their enormous responsibility for the future, but also in people who are narrow-minded, ignorant, such as Alexander Semenovich Rokk.
Sometimes it is precisely such people that the revolution elevates to unprecedented heights, and the lives of millions of people already depend on them. But a cook cannot govern the state, no matter how much some would like to prove the opposite. And the power of such people, combined with self-confidence and ignorance, leads to a national tragedy. All this is extremely clearly and realistically shown in the story.
In fact, before the revolution, Rokk was just a modest flutist from the Petukhov orchestra in the city of Odessa. But the “great year 1917” and the revolutionary events that followed it abruptly changed the fate of Rocca, making it fatal: “it turned out that this man is positively great”, and his active nature did not calm down in the position of director of the state farm, but led him to the idea of reviving the chicken livestock , exterminated by pestilence, with the help of a red ray discovered by Persikov. But Rokk is an ignorant and self-confident person, he does not even imagine what careless handling of a new, unknown scientific discovery can lead to. And as a result, instead of giant chickens, he breeds giant reptiles, which leads to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, including his wife Mani, whom he obviously loved.
At first glance, it may seem that all the misfortunes are caused by the fact that someone mixed up the boxes with eggs and sent to the state farm not chicken eggs, but reptile eggs (reptiles, as they are called in the story). Yes, indeed, there are a lot of accidents and coincidences of incredible circumstances in the plot of the story: Persikov’s discovery itself, made only because he was distracted while setting up the microscope, and the chicken plague that came from nowhere, which destroyed all the chickens in Soviet Russia, but for some reason stopped on its borders, and an eighteen-degree frost in mid-August, which saved Moscow from the invasion of reptiles, and much more.
The author does not seem to care at all about at least a minimum of plausibility. But these are only visible “accidents”, each of them has its own logic, its own symbolism. For example, why did the terrible events that led to mass casualties take place precisely in 1928? An accidental coincidence or a tragic prediction of the future terrible famine in Ukraine in 1930 and the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” with complete collectivization, which led to the death of millions of people? Or what kind of bastards are so rapidly multiplying in NEP Russia under the influence of the red ray? Perhaps the new bourgeoisie, which was then also completely "liquidated"? There are many such coincidences in the story, and this makes it a prophetic work.
"Fatal Eggs" is not just satirical fiction, it is a warning. A deeply thoughtful and disturbing warning against excessive enthusiasm for a long time, in essence, an open red ray - a revolutionary process, revolutionary methods of building a "new life".
In the depths of incredibly funny stories, tragedy is hidden, sad thoughts about human shortcomings and instincts that sometimes guide them, about the responsibility of a scientist and about the terrible power of self-satisfied ignorance. The topics are eternal, relevant, and have not lost their significance even today.

Conclusion
In this course work, the comic and tragic were considered as aesthetic categories in the stories of M. A. Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs", the nature, purpose of their use and means of expression were analyzed.
The genre of satire, in which "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs" are written, makes it possible for the author, who allowed the reader to laugh, to make him cry at the peak of laughter. The comic in these works is only a very thin upper layer, barely covering the tragedy rushing out. "Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs" are very characteristic works in this respect. However, in them the ratio of the funny and the tragic is very uneven, since an insignificant part of the external event line belongs to the first. All other faces are the priority of the second.
M. A. Bulgakov uses the technique of grotesque, irony, comic construction of phrases to convey comedy and tragedy, draws attention to socially significant contradictions, conflict. The "new" social and everyday world order is depicted by the author in the style of a satirical pamphlet. Using the technique of the grotesque, Bulgakov shows the primitiveness and stupidity of the gray society, contrasting it with spiritually rich and bright personalities.
Despite the fantastic nature of the plot of the stories, they are distinguished by amazing credibility, which speaks of the greatness and unsurpassed skill of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov.

Bibliographic list

Comic and tragic in the works of M.A. Bulgakov(on the example of the story "The Heart of a Dog" and the novel "The Master and Margarita")

The Russian line of literary satire, to which N. V. Gogol, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. P. Chekhov, in the 19th century, A. Averchenko, M. Zoshchenko, V. Voinovich and others, in the 20th century, can be attributed, characterized by a large-scale understanding of the essence of human existence. Writers in this category, using devices that otherwise make the reader laugh, portray the tragedy of life they themselves feel.

M. Bulgakov is not a pure satirist. The genre of satire, in which "Heart of a Dog" is written, involves showing something in a funny way that is not at all funny in reality. This fantastic work, which depicted what was happening in Russia after the 1917 revolution as an omen of the approaching Apocalypse, turned out to be so topical that it was published only decades after the death of the author.

Comic is an obligatory attribute of even such by no means funny Bulgakov's works as the play "Running" and the novel "The Master and Margarita", which allows the author, who allowed the reader to laugh, to make him cry at the peak of laughter. The comic in these works is only a very thin upper layer, barely covering the tragedy rushing out. Heart of a Dog is a very characteristic book in this respect.

In the story, the ratio of the funny and the tragic is very uneven, since an insignificant part of the external, event line belongs to the first. All other faces are the priority of the second.

The fate of the house in Obukhov Lane correlates with the fate of Russia. “The house is gone,” says Professor Preobrazhensky after moving into his house I housing comrades. Bulgakov could have said the same (and \. spoke) about Russia after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. Ridiculous looking, ill-mannered and practically unfamiliar with the culture of a man and a woman who does not look like a woman, the reader may at first seem ridiculous. But it is they who turn out to be aliens of the kingdom of Darkness, bringing discomfort into the existence of not only the professor; it is they, led by Shvonder, who “educate” Sharik Sharikov and recommend him for public service.

The confrontation between Preobrazhensky and Shvonder can be viewed not only as a relationship between an intellectual and the new government. The main thing is that culture and anti-culture, spirituality and anti-spirituality collide, and the bloodless (so far) duel between them is not decided in favor of the first, there is no life-affirming finale in the struggle between Light and Darkness.

There is nothing funny in the image of the newly created man Sharikov (with the possible exception of a shade of this funny in Sharik's pompous and self-aggrandizing internal monologues), because only those who are marked by it can laugh at spiritual and bodily ugliness. This is a repulsively unsympathetic image, but Sharikov himself is not a bearer of evil. Only when he turned out to be the field of that very battle of Darkness and Light for his soul, he eventually becomes the mouthpiece of the ideas of Schwonder of the Bolsheviks of Satan.

A similar theme is present in The Master and Margarita, where the Lord of Darkness himself enters the stage, on which there is no longer any mask for the reader. But hidden behind many of them for the heroes of the novel, he and his servants put many in a ridiculous position, allowing others (including the reader) to survey all human and social vices (representation in Variety and other situations). Only in the case of Ivan Bezdomny, ridiculous and terrible incidents contribute to the purification of the poet's inner world from superficial and enable him to come closer to comprehending the true.

Thus, we see that the combination of the comic and the tragic in Bulgakov's works, while remaining in the stream of Russian literary satire, has an important feature for their understanding: the mixture of the funny and the sad in terms of events (even for a not too experienced and attentive reader) shows the deepest tragedy, comprehended internally.

Introduction

1. The tradition of Russian literary satire. Topics and problems that concern Russian classics: N. V. Gogol, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. P. Chekhov. The portrayal of the tragic through the comic.

2. Bulgakov is not only a satirist. Features of M. Bulgakov's satire. Comic incarnation of serious themes. A fantastic work depicting Russia after the 1917 revolution as a prediction of an impending catastrophe. Urgency of the problem.

Main part

1. The fate of Russia is the fate of the house in Obukhovsky Lane. Ridiculous-looking, illiterate men and women, lounging, "singing" and "sitting" may look ridiculous, but it is in them that the tragedy of the country is embodied. They, led by Shvonder, like aliens from the kingdom of Darkness, "educate" the "new man" Sharikov.

2. The confrontation between Preobrazhensky and Shvonder reflects the confrontation between the intelligentsia and the proletariat, the new government. Clash of culture and anti-culture, spirituality and anti-spirituality. No uplifting ending.

3. Lack of humor in the image of the "new man" Sharikov.

4. Spiritual and physical deformity. Sharikov is the mouthpiece of the ideas of Shvonder, the ideas of the Bolsheviks.

Conclusion

1. The combination of comic and tragic in the work of M. A. Bulgakov is a continuation of the tradition of Russian satirists.

2. The value of the satirical image of Russia in a critical period. A feature of Bulgakov's satire is the mixture of the funny and the sad in terms of events. It shows the deepest tragedy of the individual and society.

M. A. Bulgakov is a satirist of the 20th century, and his life made him a satirist. Each image he creates carries his love or hatred, admiration or bitterness, tenderness or regret. When you read a truly immortal work - "Heart of a Dog" - you inevitably become infected with these feelings. With satire, he only "snarled" at all that evil that was born and multiplied before his eyes, from which he himself had to fight back more than once, and that threatened tragedy for the people and country. The writer could not stand violence against people, but in his time it was used more and more widely and was primarily directed at the breadwinner of the country - the peasant - and against the intelligentsia, which he considered the best part of the people. Bulgakov saw the main misfortune of his "backward" country in lack of culture and ignorance. Both the first and the second with the destruction of the intelligentsia, despite the "cultural revolution" and the elimination of illiteracy, did not decrease, but, on the contrary, penetrated both the state apparatus and those sections of society that, in all respects, should have constituted its intellectual environment. Realizing what a tragedy all this could lead to, he rushed into battle to defend all that "reasonable, kind, eternal" that the best minds of the Russian intelligentsia sowed in their time and that were discarded and trampled down in the name of the so-called class interests of the proletariat.

I was very interested in this work, so I set myself the goal: to more deeply explore the manifestation of the tragic and the comic in it, as well as to consider the interweaving of these two seemingly opposite categories. Therefore, before starting work, it is necessary to give them definitions in order to consider their manifestation in the "Heart of a Dog" in its entirety. So:

The combination of the comic and the tragic in Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog" has one goal - to present in art the fullness of life, the diversity of its manifestations. The tragic and the comic in the story do not exist in their pure form, but turning one into the other, combining with each other, and the contrast that arises between them further enhances the facets of both. That is why the writer uses this technique in his works. The genre of satire in which the work is written involves showing something in a funny way that is not at all funny in reality. So let's get started.

Using the principles of "fantastic realism" and the grotesque, interfering with the reality of NEP Russia and original fiction, the writer creates a fascinating and sinister story. The theme of disharmony, brought to the point of absurdity due to human intervention in the eternal laws of nature, is revealed by Bulgakov with brilliant skill and talent in the story, the plot of which is unusual, it combines the comic and the tragic.

The protagonist of "The Heart of a Dog" - Professor Preobrazhensky - is a typical Moscow intellectual, a surgeon, a highly cultured person. His assistant is Dr. Bormenthal. Preobrazhensky critically perceives everything that has been happening since March 1917:

"- Why, when this whole story began, did everyone begin to walk in dirty galoshes and felt boots up the marble stairs? .. Why did they remove the carpet from the front stairs? .. Why the hell did they remove the flowers from the platforms?

Ruin, Philip Philipovich.

No,” Philipp Philippovich retorted quite confidently, “no. You are the first, dear Ivan Arnoldovich, to refrain from using that very word. It is a smoke, a mirage, a fiction. "…" What is this devastation of yours? An old woman with a stick? The witch who broke all the windows? Yes, it doesn't exist at all. What do you mean by this word? "..." This is what: if I, instead of operating every evening, start singing in chorus in my apartment, I will have devastation. If, on entering the lavatory, I begin, pardon the expression, to urinate past the toilet bowl, and Darya Petrovna does the same, devastation will come in the lavatory. Consequently, the devastation is not in the closets, but in the heads. So, when these baritones shout "beat the devastation!" - I am laughing. I swear to you, I'm laughing! That means they have to hit themselves on the back of the head!"

The professor's views have much in common with the views of the author. They are both skeptical of the revolution and oppose terror and the proletariat. When Shvonder and the company come to the professor, he calls one of the patients and declares that he will not perform an operation on him, "stops practice altogether and leaves forever for Batum," because workers armed with revolvers came to him (and this is actually no) and make him sleep in the kitchen and do the surgery in the bathroom. A certain Vitaly Vlasevich reassures him, promising to give him a "strong" piece of paper, after which no one will touch him. The professor is jubilant. The working delegation remains with the nose.

Buy then, comrade, - says the worker, - literature in favor of the poor of our faction.

I won’t buy it,” the professor replies.

Why? After all, it's inexpensive. Only 50 k. Maybe you don't have any money?

No, I have money, but I just don't want to.

So you don't like the proletariat?

Yes, the professor confesses, I don't like the proletariat.

A great many more examples could be cited, examples of Bulgakov definitely hating and despising the entire Sovstroy, denying all its achievements. But there are few such professors, the Sharikovs and Shvonders are the vast majority. Is this not a tragedy for Russia? According to the professor, people need to be taught elementary culture in everyday life, at work, in relationships, then the devastation will disappear by itself, there will be peace and order. And this should not be done with terror: "Terror can't do anything"... "They think in vain that terror will help them. No, sir, no, sir, it won't help, no matter what it is: white, red or even brown! Terror is completely paralyzes the nervous system. It is necessary to act with kindness, persuasion and your own example. Preobrazhensky admits that the only remedy against devastation is to ensure order, when everyone can do their own thing: “The policeman! This and only that! And it doesn’t matter at all whether he will be with a badge or in a red cap. vocal impulses of our citizens. I'll tell you... that nothing will change for the better in our house, and in any other house, until these singers are subdued! As soon as they stop their concerts, the situation will change by itself to the best!" But this philosophy of his suffers a tragic collapse, because even he himself cannot bring up a reasonable person in Sharikov. What are the reasons for the failure of a brilliant experiment? Why didn't Sharik develop further under the influence of two educated and cultured people? The point is not at all in genetics and not in physiology, but in the fact that Sharikov is a type of a certain environment. The creature's actions are determined by the dog's instincts and Klim's genes. The contrast between the intellectual beginning of Preobrazhensky and Bormental and the instincts of Sharikov is so striking that it turns from the comic into the grotesque and paints the story in tragic tones.

And it all starts like this: Professor Preobrazhensky picks up a mongrel and conducts an experiment: he transplants a human pituitary gland into a dog. The result is unexpected, comical: the dog turns into a man. This gives the professor and his assistant, Dr. Bormenthal, a reason to dream of creating a new, highly developed personality. But from an ordinary mongrel dog, an ignorant boor is formed, inheriting from the donor Klim Chugunkin not only the pituitary gland, but also an unsympathetic appearance, bad habits and a tendency to alcoholism. The author shows how gradually, under the influence of the chairman of the house committee Shvonder, Polygraph Poligrafovich (as he wished to be called) makes more and more demands on Professor Preobrazhensky, becomes a threat to the whole house. And the comic gradually becomes tragic.

Here is a creature, while still a dog, ready to lick the professor's boots and exchange freedom for a piece of sausage. This animal is content with a small, ordinary "happiness", like many people in the early 20s, who began to get used to living in unheated apartments, eating rotten corned beef in the Councils of normal nutrition, getting pennies and not being surprised at the lack of electricity. While the dog lies on the street and suffers from a burned side, he thinks. His statements are "humanly" rational, they have a certain logic: "A citizen appeared. It was a citizen, not a comrade, and even - most likely - a gentleman. - Closer - more clearly - a gentleman. Do you think I judge by a coat? Nonsense. Very many of the proletarians now wear coats, but by the look of their eyes, you can’t confuse them both up close and from afar... You can see everything - who has a great dryness in his soul, who can poke his boot into his ribs for no reason at all, and who he's afraid of everything." Having received help from the professor and settled in his apartment, the dog begins to grow in his own eyes: "I am a handsome man. Perhaps an unknown incognito canine prince. "..." It is very possible that my grandmother sinned with a diver. That's what I I look - I have a white spot on my muzzle. Where does it come from, one wonders? Philipp Philippovich - a man with great taste, will not take the first mongrel dog that comes across. " But the psychology of this dog is dictated only by the conditions of life and its origin.

While still a dog, Sharik understood the tragedy of people, the decline in their morals: “I’m tired of my Matryona, I’ve been tormented with flannel pants, now my time has come. on Abrau-Durso! Because I was hungry enough in my youth, it will be with me, and the afterlife does not exist! " The dog's reasoning causes a smile, but this is just a grotesque covered with a thin layer of comedy. And what are the professor's patients! Take at least an old man who boasted of love affairs or this:

"- I'm too famous in Moscow, professor! What to do now?" - Gentlemen! - Philipp Philippovich shouted indignantly, - you can’t do that! You need to restrain yourself. How old is she? - Fourteen, professor ... You understand, publicity will ruin me "One of these days I should get a business trip abroad. - But I'm not a lawyer, my dear ... Well, wait two years and marry her. - I'm married, professor! - Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen! .."

And now, "the lord's dog, an intelligent creature," as Sharik called himself, who closed his eyes with shame in the professor's office, one terrible day turns not into a developed personality, as Dr. Bormental suggested, but into a redneck, a boor and a frequenter of taverns Klim Chugunkin. The first words that this creature speaks are vulgar swear words, the lexicon of the lower strata of society. He is unsympathetic in appearance, gaudily dressed, and pristine in relation to any culture. Sharik, by all means, wants to break into people, but does not understand that for this it is necessary to go a long way of development, it takes work, work on oneself, mastering knowledge. But there are countless such Sharikovs in Russia, and this misunderstanding leads to tragedy not only in the story, but also in reality. Attempts to instill elementary manners in Sharik cause him strong resistance: “Everything is like in a parade, a napkin is there, a tie is here, yes“ please - merci ”, but so that for real, then no. You torture yourself, like under the tsarist regime. The author follows how, under the influence of the chairman of the house committee, Shvonder, and as the creature's self-conceit grows, so do its demands. The chairman of the house committee does not burden this child of experiment with any kind of culture, but he drums in an extremely attractive program. Shvonder does not realize that this program: who was nothing, will become everything - can play a cruel joke not only with the intelligentsia, but also with the Shvonders themselves, if anyone decides to direct them against themselves. The writer predicted purges already among the communists, when the more successful shvonders drowned the less successful ones. Tragedy! The way Sharikov becomes a participant in the revolutionary process, how he ideally approaches it, perceives its ideas, in 1925 looked like a vicious satire on the process and its participants. Two weeks after he turned into a man, he has a document proving his identity, although in fact he is not a person, which is what the professor expresses: "So he said? "..." This does not yet mean to be human." A week later, Sharikov is already a petty official, but his nature remains the same as it was - dog-criminal. What is worth one of his message about the work: "Yesterday the cats were strangled, strangled." But what kind of satire is this, if thousands of people like Sharikov, after a few years, just "strangled, strangled" not cats - people, workers, who had not been guilty of anything before the revolution?

Polygraph Polygraphich becomes a threat to the professor and the inhabitants of his apartment, and indeed to the whole society as a whole. Referring to his proletarian origin, he demands from the professor documents, living space, freedoms, and snaps at fair remarks: “Something you are oppressing me, daddy.” In his speech, the terminology of the ruling class appears: "In our time, everyone has his own right", "I am not a master, gentlemen are all in Paris." Moreover, the last phrase is especially frightening, since it is no longer a repetition of what Shvonder said, but Sharikov's own thought. bulgakov's story dog's heart ball

On Schwonder's advice, Poligraf Poligrafovich tries to master Engels' correspondence with Kautsky and sums up his very comic line under it, following the principle of universal leveling, which he learned from what he read: "Take everything and divide it up." Of course, this sounds ridiculous, which the professor notes: “And you, in the presence of two people with a university education, allow yourself to“…”give some advice on a cosmic scale and cosmic stupidity on how to share everything ... "; but wasn't that what the leadership of the young republic did, equalizing the benefits of honest peasants, working hard, and such lazy people as Chugunkin? What awaits Russia with such Sharikovs, Chugunkins and Shvonders? Bulgakov was one of the first to understand that she would come to a tragic end. This is the tragicomism of Bulgakov: to make the reader laugh and cry at the peak of laughter. It should also be noted that "Sharikovism" is obtained only as a result of "Shvonder's" education. And there are more and more Shvonders every day ...

Polygraph Poligrafych brings suspicious personalities to the living space allocated to him in the professor's apartment. The patience of the inhabitants of the apartment runs out, and the Polygraph, feeling threatened, becomes dangerous. He disappears from the apartment, and then appears in it already in a different form: "He was wearing a leather jacket from someone else's shoulder, worn leather trousers and English high boots with lacing up to the knees." Now he is the head of the sub-department for cleaning the city of Moscow from stray animals (cats, etc.) Feeling the taste of power, Polygraph roughly uses it. He brings the bride to the house, and after the professor explains to her the essence of the Polygraph, and the unfortunate lady leaves, he threatens to take revenge on her: "Well, you remember me. Tomorrow I will arrange a layoff for you." Bulgakov poses the question point-blank no longer of whether there will be a tragic ending or not, but asks about the extent of the tragedy to which Russia will be subjected.

Further - worse. Inspired by Shvonder, the offended Sharikov writes a denunciation of his creator: "... threatening to kill the chairman of the house committee, comrade Shvonder, from which it is clear that he keeps firearms. And he makes counter-revolutionary speeches, and even ordered Engels "..." to be burned in the stove, like an obvious Menshevik ... " .

"The crime matured and fell like a stone, as it usually happens" ... "Sharikov himself invited his death." At the request of Philip Philipovich to leave the apartment, he answered with a decisive refusal and pointed a revolver at Dr. Bormenthal. Having undergone a reverse operation, Sharik does not remember anything and everyone thinks that he was "so lucky, just indescribably lucky." And Bulgakov brightens up the tragic ending with a comic note.

In the foreground - an experiment of a brilliant scientist, an exciting plot. In front of the professor's eyes, from a sweet, but cunning, little toady-dog, a person turns out. And the biological experiment becomes a moral-psychological experiment. The story of an old school professor who made a great discovery. In the depths of incredibly funny stories, tragedy is hidden, sad thoughts about human shortcomings and instincts that sometimes guide them, about the responsibility of a scientist and about the terrible power of self-satisfied ignorance. The topics are eternal, relevant, and have not lost their significance even today.

Bulgakov's clever and humane satire does not cross boundaries, because one cannot thoughtlessly mock and laugh at human misfortunes, even if the person himself is guilty of them. The personality is destroyed, crushed, all its centuries-old achievements - culture, faith - are destroyed and prohibited. The tragedy of the people, the tragedy of morals. Sharikovs themselves are not born.

Bulgakov's works are the richest school of skill, humor, satire, grotesque. His influence is easy to detect in the writings of many authors. Each of his works is an exciting read, enriching and ennobling. To some extent, they are also a prediction. The all-seeing writer saw a lot.

The book itself was banned for a long time and was first published many years after the death of the writer. Bulgakov's contemporary, the writer V. Veresaev, said: "But censorship cuts him mercilessly. Recently, the wonderful thing "Heart of a Dog" was stabbed to death, and he completely loses heart. the power of art criticism was not a destructive denial and ridicule of everything new, although sometimes they were interpreted that way. This satire ingeniously fought against the forces of destruction, disunity and evil, highlighted and burned out the ugliness of social life and the "new" human psychology, affirming and reinforcing the old values: culture, honesty, dignity. The tragedy is that censorship did not let the story in, thereby preventing people from thinking about the arrangement of a new life. And they went with the flow, that is, they went down, because the necessary thoughts were not put into their heads by a wise writer (or a predictor?).

The story about Sharik, despite all the prohibitions, lived in the dilapidated bindings of samizdat for 60 years, exerting a hidden influence on people and literature. Now the story has become the property of cinema, theater and television, which only confirms its permanence and relevance. Only at first glance the play seems comical. Two opposite categories intertwine and dissolve one into another in order to present the fullness of life and feelings in the work, to let the reader realize the realism of the work, because nothing happens in life in its pure form - neither good nor evil, neither comic nor tragic. Bulgakov skillfully weaves fantasy into real life, making it practically real - he connects two more opposites for the same purposes.

Pushkin said: "Wherever the sword of the law does not reach, the scourge of satire reaches there." In the story, the scourge of satire penetrated deep into the real life of the 1920s, and fantasy helped him in this, showing people from an unexpected side.

Bibliography

1) Bulgakov M. A. "Novels" // Sovremennik // 1988 //

2) Fusso S. B. "Heart of a Dog" On the failure of the transformation // "Literary Review" // 1991

3) Shargorodsky S.V. "Heart of a Dog, or a Monstrous Story" // "Literary Review" // 1991

4) Sokolov B.V. "Bulgakov Encyclopedia" // Lokid // 1996

5) Ioffe S. A. "Cryptography in the Heart of a Dog" // New Journal // 1987

6) Internet resources

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