I think that Heart of a Dog is a rather hilarious piece in our introduction to the Communist Revolution, more specifically a pointed humorous satire of those bubbling ideas. The book itself as an interesting history, initially not allowed to be published after its completion in 1925. The manuscript was actually taken from Bulgakov, and he had to put an effort in to retrieving the unique copy before the work was trashed! It was only published on Russian soil in 1987.
There is speculation that the book’s plot was loosely based off of a controversial Franco-Russian doctor Serge Voronoff, who experimented with grafting Dog and Monkey testicles to men to “rejuvenate” things like sex drive, basically give older men hormones to be younger. Voronoff grew incredibly wealthy off of his procedures and was a sort of celebrity in French circles. He is even alluded to in a E. E. Cummings poem. On the verge of transplantation science, Voronoff did radically liberal procedures that many today would deem unethical. His xenotransplantations are something straight out of a science fiction book, but yet were a commonly known procedure for the ultra-wealth of the early 20th century.
Bulgakov grabs Voronoff’s ridiculousness and (sorry for the pun) grafts it onto the growing ideas of bolshevisms within Russia. It is no mistake that the drunkard whose parts were transplanted into the dog has Bolshevik sympathies. Bulgakov is crafting a sort of allegory for the transfiguration of the lower class of Russia, those who are uneducated and un-modernized, and showing how ideas of Bolshevisms lead towards those former peasant people absurdly entering “civilized” society.
Brennan, the author of this work is not Maxim Gorky, but Mikhail Bulgakov. The two authors have nothing in common! Gorky was an official Soviet writer and one of the progenitors of socialist realism.
Sorry! I fixed my mistake!
I found your analysis of the deeper meaning of the story to be quite interesting, how the bolsheviks were written as returning to a more primitive lifestyle within the context of a large “civilized” metropolis. I found it interesting as well to compare this “less civilized” characterization of the bolsheviks to the “more civilized” Professor, who by our standards, doesn’t read as a sympathetic character. He is abusive and rude, but is meant to be a shining beacon of intellectualism next to the dog, which i don’t think aged too well.
Gabe, you’re quite right: I think the Professor, too, is definitely meant to be a satirical portrait and a rather unsavory character, not an entirely sympathetic one by any means (and even not very sympathetic at all). After all, for starters, he is making his living by messing around with people’s sex organs–hardly an elite or highly civilized pastime. And his misguided attempt to style himself as a kind of godhead or priest is also not one that readers are meant to approve of. Arguably, one reason why the narrative begins by showing us the dog’s perspective is so that we can sympathize with him and see the Professor as cruel and manipulative. 🙂