The soviet propaganda posters are all so rich both artistically and visually, I am sad that many of the first years in this course never got a chance to see the wonderful exhibition of soviet propaganda that was in our art museum. Last class when we talked about what “socialist realism” should be, the propaganda posters are perfect illustrations of the doctrine. They show life not as it is but idealized. They are easily understood and serve a distinct purpose of the state. I know given the time frame of our class we won’t have a chance to talk in-depth about each one, so I hope to in my post do a deep dive into one poster.

The poster I want to talk of is from the “Lenin era” specifically the one of the blind man (hopefully it is shown below). The intended message of the poster is written below “An illiterate man is like a blind man. Everywhere failures and misfortunes await him.” Skillfully and subtly, this poster visually fortifies the written meaning. Most notably, the man is walking to the left, which is unnatural to the viewing eye who is used to reading left to right. This motion indicates the man is walking the wrong way, away from the left to right arrow of progress that is the norm. Additionally, the Man is seen with long hair and a beard, perhaps referencing “old believers” and showing their “backwardness.” More so, the visual style of this poster is that of the wood prints we looked at early in the semester, antiquing illiteracy and the illiterate man. Interestingly also, the cliff seen here mirrors that of the statue of the bronze horseman. Whereas in that statue, Peter rears his horse pointing and looking off of the cliff into the modern world, the blind man instead stumbles backwards off of it.

You can see the amount of meaning that these Soviet artists saturated their posters with! It is an incredible form of art, just dripping with cultural meaning. To open this up as a discussion, perhaps people can put in the thread other posters, and historical cultural references they see in them, and how those references are being used under the “socialist realism” doctrine.

I found the 1949 short film “Someone Else’s Voice” to be quite disturbing, although its main characters are cartoon birds. As soon as the magpie entered the film, I could tell what the moral at the end of the film was to be. The idyllic initial scene was set with the nightingale singing for a crowd of birds who listened to him in rapture. Once the magpie entered, her criticism of the nightingale as “old fashioned” and her admiration of foreign birds who had “freedom” made it immediately clear to me that she was the social outlier that needed to be put in line. When she put on her own concert to show the nightingale how it was done abroad, of course she was a painful bad singer who only cared about her appearance. The scene that struck me the most in this film was the moment when the disapproving crowd of birds watching the magpie’s concert had had enough, and so flew in unison off of their perches to attack her and chase her off stage. Order was restored once the magpie was gone and the nightingale sang for the birds again.

That scene was so impactful for me because of its quick and violent action against a cultural dissident. There was universal disapproval of the magpie, and so her presence could not be tolerated. The translation of this image into real life is evocative of the similarly menacing Stalinist propaganda posters that we also viewed. As we know, artists of all types that did not suit Stalin’s liking were thrown into prison, barely tried, and then killed. Seeing this same concept play out even in an animated film was definitely disconcerting.

The Heart of a Dog is quite a bold satire, especially when reading between the lines and focusing the story’s ridicule of Bolshevism. The transformation of a mangy stray to the “ideal” Soviet man back to a mangy dog is in itself a hot take that, not surprisingly, was not even allowed to be published. The emphasis on the unreal and out-of-the-ordinary to highlight the absurdities and flaws of the society that Bulgakov lived in is striking. The concept of poking fun (fun might be too simple of a word, but attacking feels a bit too strong) at the government’s regime using such normalized terms is quite powerful.
One especially striking thing is Bulgakov’s choice of character names. The doctor’s name is a prime example of names implying more than expected. After doing a bit of background research on the book, it turns out that Dr. Preobrazhensky’s name derives from the Russian word meaning “of transfiguration.” This name choice seemed especially ironic, as he is the one to transform Sharik the dog to Sharikov the man. Choosing to give Dr. Preobrazhensky this name is a simplistic way to add a bit of satire, which unfortunately is lost on those who do not understand Russian. Another bold choice when it comes to names is the one Dr. Preobrazhensky gives Sharik once the dog transforms into a man. Sharik gets the name Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov. The name Poligraf Poligrafovich is modeled after the tradition of double names in Russian culture, especially prominent in the Soviet Union. However, Bulgakov satirized this tradition by using this name, as both the first and middle names are so similar it would be like naming a character John Johnson in an English satire.

There is an interesting thematic division within Bugalkov’s Heart of a Dog. On the one hand, Sharikov functions as a critique of the values embraced by 1920’s Soviet Russia: disregard for manners and other basic norms, appreciation of the circus before theatre, participation of contemptible people in official capacities, betrayal of neighbors to the secret police, and hypocritical disregard toward alcoholism and sexual assault. On the other hand, the narrative challenges the regressive values of Philip Philippovich Preobrazhensky. His entire motivation for creating Sharikov is eugenics (104), centered on a belief in the linear evolution of life. Only through such a view could transplanting a human pituitary gland to a dog produce a superior being. Yet rather than perfecting Sharik, the operation returns a being far more sinister than Sharik ever was, one mainly guided by the wicked impulses of the vagrant who supplied Sharikov’s brain. For Preobrazhensky, the experience shows how his effort was less successful at “improving humanity” than chance alone. Although the eugenics content is retroactively more reminiscent of fascism, the belief in inevitable societal progression is central to Marxism. As such, the refutation of Preobrazhensky’s beliefs ironically serves to challenge the system so despised by the Professor. Still, the rejection of natural  hierarchies of humans or animals does correspond to communist ideals, showcasing perhaps one fault of bourgeois thought.

With this critique considered, it perplexed me how the book concludes with Preobrazhensky resuming his work dissecting brains and searching for a means of achieving “rejuvenation” (123). I now see a couple possible meanings. First of all, the sequence might refer back to Preobrazhensky’s stubbornness and refusal to accept even benign changes in prevailing thought. After all, this is a man who still wears a medieval French mustache style (6). The sequence might also be understood as recalling the disturbing manner in which Sharik was made a human. Such an ending would reiterate the tragic aspect of the narrative: a seriously wounded dog gives its trust to a promising benefactor, only to be subject to a horrific experiment that goes against its founders core ambitions. Stated as such, a clear parallel between Sharik and Russia during the early 20th century emerges. I do not believe one aspect of the ending ought to be emphasized over the other; taken together, they cover both key themes.

 Heart of A Dog has been sitting on my bookshelf since January. Honestly, til I had to move out last month, I’m sure it had been collecting a modest amount of dust. Little did I know, I had been ignoring one of the most provocative, hilarious, and creative books I have ever read. The overall plot is reminiscent of Gogol’s The Nose: personification of a non-human character and his adventures with his newfound humanity. I’m not sure if I can go so far as to say that this story is another example of magical realism, but this satire definitely contains elements of the absurd and the bizarre. 

Undergarments, specifically women’s panties, were a recurring symbol in this novel. Bulgakov uses underwear to demonstrate women as the recipients of violent masculinity and emasculate men. Sharik comments on a woman’s underwear: “… her panties give no warmth, a bit of lacy fluff. For her lover’s sake. Let her just try and put on flannel panties, and he’ll yell!” (Bulgakov 4) The line ‘bit of lacy fluff’ depicts just how little worth the pretty underwear actually possess. They do not even protect against the bitter cold. Just as the dog whose fur is burned off she is left to the mercy of the rough Moscow wind. ‘Lover’s sake’ reveals the reliance that she has on the man in her life for support. It also adds a bit of irony to the story. How much could Vlas possibly love her if he would be aggressive with her for leaving the precious panties behind for some warm clothes. When the man who came in for a surgery to increase his sexual potency removes his pants, he reveals “ a pair of the most unique underpants. They were cream colored, embroidered with black cats, and they smelled of perfume” (19).  The phrase ‘cream colored’ suggests that the underwear are characterized by a frail feminine air. The decorative touch of ‘black cats’ adds an innocent or prepubescent flair to the man. Only small children have images on their underwear. Since he was previously lacking in the sex department, the man is not only being reduced to a feminine identity, but he is also given a childish demeanor.

disturbing image of Sharik

This work is definitely satirical, as much of the details after the operation on Sharik are absurd. I think a reason for the exaggerated calmness of the following events is in part by the perspective that the story is told. I would like to draw attention to the following passage on page 56:

December 23. At 8:15 P.M.– first operation in Europe according to Prof. Preobrazhensky: Sharik’s testes removed under chloroform anesthesia and replaced by graft of human testes with epididymis and seminal cords, obtained from a man of twenty-eight who died four hours and four minutes before the operation and preserved in sterile physiological fluid according to Prof. Preobrazhensky. Directly following, pituitary gland, or hypophysis, removed after trepanning of skull and replaced by a human one taken from above man.

The significance of this passage lies in its perspective. Bulgakov begins his story with a stray dog who is wandering the streets with a bad burn on his left side. The dog contemplates his death before he is discovered and cared for by Philip Philippovich.Later, it is realized that Philippovich took care of the dog, who has been named Sharik, to experiment on him. As told in the perspective of the dog, Zina leads Sharik to the examination room and drugged. This marks the transition of the storytelling from Sharik’s narration to a third person perspective. I think this should be especially noted in light of the following events after the operation. Sharik begins to grow human feet and starts to talk like a person, as well as standing and walking around. All these happenings occur with excitement instead of fear and disgust by Preobrazhensky and Bormenthal.

In The Heart of the Dog, Mikhail Bulgakov uses satire to make a commentary the Communist Party. Bulgakov uses the storyline of a dog undergoing surgery to become a “new soviet man” to criticize the Communist party’s practice of eugenics, which they believed would allow for the betterment of the Soviet people in future generations. After the operation, the dog, Sharik, exhibits immoral behavior such as sexually harassing women and causing a pipe to flood the household. Preobrazhensky blames this behavior on the transplant operation and the use organs of an “unfit person”, an alcoholic criminal. The fantastical situation and the Preobrazhensky’s rationale, blaming the behavior on the status of the organ donor rather than the absurd nature of the experiment, expose the hypocrisy in the Soviet eugenics ideology. Ultimately the Preobrazhensky himself denounces eugenics, faced with the failure of his experiment. Preobrazhensky in the story symbolizes the bourgeoisie and has disdain for the proletariat, represented in Sharik, so Preobrazhensky’s denunciation of eugenics is significant as he admits that a peasant could give birth to a genius. Preobrazhensky also exhibits significant denial as he spends most of the time in his apartment, symbolically sheltered from the social and political change of the outside world, where he can live out his own experiments. This contrast of Preobrazhensky’s world versus the outside world shows the absurdity of both.  Ultimately, Sharik exposes the experimental nature of the Communist Revolution as an unnatural process that is societally irresponsible, premature, and uninformed. Bulgakov’s use of satirical elements provides an acute critique on the political climate and society of Soviet Russia.

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 20^th 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.

Although Heart of a Dog is clearly satirical in its nature, the backdrop of Bolshevism and the New Economic Policy are central to the novella’s themes and are among the aspects of Soviet culture and society that Bulgakov critiques.  

The aspect of the story I find most fascinating is, perhaps, the most obvious–Bulgakov’s construction and creation of a human-like figure (which is completely unnatural and artificial).  When I was first reading the story, I, like I’m sure others did, thought immediately of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, where a professor also artificially creates another being.  But, what struck me in Heart of a Dog as opposed to Frankenstein is how Sharik (or at that point Sharikov) was able to assimilate and even succeed in Soviet society.   In Frankenstein the creature is immediately neglected and rejected by society because of his foreignness, unnaturalness, and differentness.  However, Sharikov is able to succeed– he finds a state-sponsored job, and even finds a wife-of-sorts (although this doesn’t end up working out).  Additionally, he is depicted as a stereotypical Soviet man: smoking, drinking vodka, and swearing. To sum it up, despite his artificial, unnatural, and planned existence he is able to work his way through the Soviet system. I saw this fact as a commentary on the unnaturalness of the Soviet society itself–that Sharikov, despite his aburdities, is able to ‘make it’ in a  Soviet system that Bulgakov could be saying is just as unnatural, forced, and absurd as Sharikov.

On a completely random note, I know we have talked about how Шарик is a common name for dogs in Russia, was the case before this story or did that trend follow the publication of this story? 🙂 

The stories, “The Housing Crisis” and “Poverty” by Zoshchenko, had a very simple style to identify problems in Russian society. In “The Housing Crisis,” it seemed as if a bathroom was plenty for a family with a child to comfortably live. I thought it was funny when the wife was talking about putting a partition, boudoir, and dining room all in one bathroom. The addition of members to the family and obstacles to the living situation came so easily. As these obstacles appeared, the living space of the man decreased more and more. This indicated the hardship of the living space in Moscow if someone progressed in their life by marrying and having a child. Also, the ease of the hardship that finally made the man leave the bathroom emphasized the pain of living in such a small space. In “Poverty,” something so simple as light indicated the poverty in the mansion. The extra light exposed the bedbugs, stains and rips in the furniture and walls. The landlady did not have the money to pay clean up her room so she cut the wiring in the building. In these two stories, the simplicity of events that occurred emphasized the meaning of the story. The hardship of the housing was displayed the addition of obstacles that limited the space of the man. The simplicity of light showing the dirtiness of the rooms indicated poverty.