Michail Afanas'evic Bulgakov
Cuore di cane

In those days, writing something original required not just hands, a few good ideas, and a winning form/lexicon. A much more important characteristic was having a pair of big guts. In May of '26, the secret police entered his home: not for a glass of straight vodka and to chat about this and that, but to seize some writings including “Heart of a Dog.” Regarding the work, Bulgakov had to partially retract, make some excuses, and affirm, without much conviction, that the story had turned out stronger than his real intentions. His early theatrical works found a convinced supporter in Stalin, and perhaps it was just for this mild sympathy/respect that he managed to survive the terror years of the following decade and write, with enormous difficulty, that masterpiece “The Master and Margarita.” He was not a counter-revolutionary, as he did not foment dissent, but he certainly did not feel sympathy for a regime he managed to capture through brilliant, original, and courageous works like this one, which made him, decades after his death, one of the pillars of 20th-century literature.

The strange adventures of the dog Pallino, transformed into a man after a transplant of human testes and pituitary gland, what disruptive subversive power could they have for the Russian police of the time? At first superficial analysis, it would seem like just a delightful and amusing story, effective and quick in the lively dialogues between the two protagonists, with surreal outlines and dramatic sarcastic tones.

The “New Economic Policy” was a painful step back from the revolutionary ideals that Lenin aimed for. However, Russia in the early '20s was not yet ready for pure socialism, and the N.E.P., which among other things restored private property, while economically strengthening the state, socially destabilized it by depriving it of the certainties achieved after years of bloody civil war.

A poor wounded and dying dog will be saved and fed by a renowned surgeon who, months later, will subject him to an extreme surgical intervention (whose purpose was to find a way to rejuvenate) that by mistake will transform him into a man. The being physically resembles an adult human, but the absolutely deplorable behavior of Mr. Pallinov, though it might initially make the reader smile, testifies with cynical realism to the bewilderment and inability to accept this sudden change imposed by force. The book is therefore a snapshot of the time and a fragile society: the dog obviously embodies the proletariat victorious after the revolution, and the sudden return to canine features is all too exhaustive. The clash between the well-off world-renowned professor and the regime's representatives leaves nothing to chance and, with its sharp dialogues, renders the clear social rift that widened the distances between social classes.

But “Heart of a Dog”, like “Fatal Eggs” (highly recommended), is also a “j’accuse” against science, now without limits and free to experiment with any monstrosity: “Pallino(v)”, as charming as he may seem in his ways, appears as a brother of Frankenstein. At the time of writing, indeed, several articles had been published in Russia regarding rejuvenation experiments using monkeys as test subjects.

If we finally want to analyze the text by removing it from the historical context, the work has the enormous merit of still being relevant by focusing on contemporary man and his egocentrism: he believes himself to be the creator of his actions, not realizing that he is often little more than a mere object of history.

I am not sure I've done a good job, but I hope the time spent might bring some newbies closer to Bulgakov just as the review of “The Master and Margarita” did for me.