Heart of a Dog

Heart of a Dog is a novel written by Mikhail Bulgakov, the Russian author, in 1925 at the height of the New Economic Period in Soviet Russia. This was a time when communism seemed like it was weakening in the Soviet Union, and the novel is often interpreted as an allegory for the Communist revolution. It wasn’t officially released in Russia until 1987. It has been filmed in both Russian and Italian versions, as well as English adaptations as plays and operas. This includes: the comic opera, The Murder of Comrade Sharik in 1973; a 1988 Soviet movie named Sobachye Serdtse; a Guerilla Opera staged an opera in 2007, and a second production in 2010; a staging at the University of Leeds in 2011; and many more. The Kills released a 2016 song called Heart of a Dog, inspired by the book.

The story begins in Moscow, 1924. A stray dog is foraging for trash during the winter, and a cook who finds him scalds him with boiling water. The dog lays, dying, and waits for death. Then a surgeon named Philip Philippovich Preobrazhensky offers the dog a sausage. The dog follows Philip back to his flat, and is named Sharik. This is an ironic name, usually used to describe a pampered or pure-bred dog.

Sharik meets the doctor’s household. The doctor is vocally anti-communist, but he is untouchable because he treats the RCP leaders. He refuses to decrease his seven room flat, and treats the Bolsheviks and Schwonder very badly. Sharik is impressed, and takes on a ‘gentleman’s dog’ role.



A servant takes Sharik for a walk, and doesn’t mind a passing stray’s taunts. Sharik gets more and more healthy, but then the doctor orders Sharik locked in the bathroom, and the laboratory prepared.

Sharik is furious, and is dragged to the lab. He is sedated and operated on. The doctor gives Sharik a human pituitary gland, and human testicles. These organs were cut and taken from an alcoholic thief and bully.

The story shifts perspective to that of Bormenthal, the doctor’s assistant. Then it shifts again into third person perspective.



After the operation, the household watches Sharik transform into a very primitive human being. He builds an alliance with Schwonder, and is granted human papers.

The doctor and Bormenthal try to teach what is now being called Sharikov basic manners, but he mocks them as a relic of Tsarism, and says it is better to behave naturally. He curses, doesn’t shave, and dresses and eats like a slob.

Sharikov accidentally turns on the spigot while chasing a cat, and floods the entire flat. Later, he tries to sexually assault one of the women servants. Bormenthal hits Sharikov and makes him apologize, but Sharikov is furious and leaves for several days.



It is soon after this that Bormenthal begs the doctor to do something about the problem; specifically, he asks for permission to dose and kill Sharikov with arsenic. He calls him a man with the heart of a dog. The doctor is horrified at the thought and says the person from whom the body parts were harvested is at fault, not Sharikov. Then Bormenthal suggests redoing to operation, using the body of a genius. The doctor says no again, but contradicts his former beliefs by saying that eugenics are a waste of time, because even a peasant could birth a genius.

Sharikov returns, and announces that he has been given a job by the Soviet State. His job is to strangle stray cats. The Party is turning them into cheap fur coats for the working class. After this, he brings home a woman who he works with, and introduces to the doctor as his common law wife. Sharikov demands they be given their own room, but the doctor takes the woman aside, explaining that Sharikov is an experiment gone wrong. She was originally told that he had been maimed while fighting in the Siberian Army. She is shocked, and leaves. Sharikov vows to have her fired. Again, Bormenthal beats him up and makes him swear not to do that.

A senior Party official and good friend named Pyotr Alexandrovich arrives. He tells the doctor that Sharikov has denounced him to the secret police. He says nothing will happen because the States distrusts Sharikov, and leaves. The doctor and Bormenthal tell Sharikov to leave permanently. Instead Sharikov draws a gun, and the two men attack him.



Time passes, and a silence surrounds the flat. The doctor and Bormenthal seem very relaxed. The police arrive, escorted by Schwonder. They demand Sharikov be presented. Sharikov, however, has changed back into a dog. The doctor explains this as a natural occurrence, but obviously the two men reversed the operation. The police and Schwonder depart.

The dog-version of Sharik resumes the status as gentleman’s dog. The end of the book tells of the doctor bringing home yet another human brain and removing the pituitary gland, and it is suggested that he intends to try another experiment.