Feeding a Poor Dog a Bone: The Quest for Nourishment in Bulgakov's Sobach'e Serdtse

Abstract

M ikhail Bulgakov's Sobach'e serdtse (1925), most critics would agree, is essentially the tale of transformation gone awry: it tells the story of how scientistthrough misguided organ transplant operation-turns a perfectly delightful dog into disgustingly vulgar quasi-human being.' As Helena Goscilo explains, those human qualities that made Sharik so winsome are replaced in Sharikov by baser impulses.2 Few readers, I think, would seriously dispute the view that what stands at the center of Bulgakov's satiric novella is this ill-fated transformation of Sharik (the pleasant dog) into Sharikov (the unpleasant man), change that is generally interpreted as serving to parody the grand social experiment of creating new species of human being: homo sovieticus. It seems to me, however, that readers of Sobach'e serdtse tend to overlook metamorphosis of almost equal significance that occurs earlier in the narrative when Sharik is first taken in off the street by Philipp Philippovich and brought home to live with him.3 Upon trading his wretched freedom for the material comforts provided in the wealthy doctor's home, this clever canine vagabond rapidly changes his class identity and transforms himself from homeless mutt