A dog's heart

Mikhail Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog" is a work about the loss of civilized values in Soviet Russia, combining sharp satire and deep philosophy. An outstanding surgeon conceived an unprecedented experiment - an operation to transplant a human pituitary gland and testicles to a homeless dog named Sharik. The results of the operation exceeded all expectations - Sharik gradually began to take on a human form, but became a boor and a drunkard. Under the influence of the communist activist Shvonder, who convinced him that he was a proletarian suffering from oppression by the bourgeoisie (in the person of Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Doctor Bormental), Sharikov turns life in the professor's house into a nightmare. The story was published in English translation by Antonina V. Bui.