The readers' interest has always been aroused by works about doctors. On the one hand, the heroes are ordinary people, and on the other, doctors are wizards who, only with the help of skills and intelligence, manage to heal a person. The protagonist of the book by Lyudmila Ulitskaya "Kukotsky's Case" is a wonderful person, doctor Pavel Alekseevich Kukotsky.
The nature of the charm of Ulitskaya's novel, on which the television series was filmed, cannot be explained. The author turns readers into participants in the life of the hero's family. All the characters are visibly felt, a living experience begins for their destroyed feelings, the destroyed family idyll. A bitter confession comes that the reason for this was not the stupidity of the tyrant, but a noble and kind person. There remains the question of termination of pregnancy, rightness or wrongness of Kukotsky, who sacrificed personal happiness in favor of the profession, his genius or villainy.
The doctor and his patients
In the magazine version, the work had a different title. The book was called "A Journey to the Seventh Side of the World." The title clearly refers to science fiction. Later, the writer changed the name to a more specific one. An incident is called a special, most difficult case, and jurisprudence calls it confusing situations that are not provided for by law.
The essay acquaints readers with the life of a far from standard Soviet intelligent family. The duration of the book refers to the heyday of Soviet power. The young government took care of a lot. He was especially interested in the problem of the nation's health. The protagonist of the novel, gynecologist Kukotsky, is certainly a talented person. His patients are exclusively women. He monitors the progress of their pregnancy, takes delivery, helps after miscarriages.
He had seen the death of victims of clandestine abortions. He knows everything about women's health, as he has seen dirt in the closets where poor women huddle, a few children have escaped, the doctor has seen babies freezing due to malnutrition. Pavel Alekseevich also knows those ladies who do not care about the future.
The doctor keeps statistics, analysis of activities. This is not necessary only for the state, but also for the specialist himself. Kukotsky not only heals, he takes care of the wards. The doctor understands perfectly well that women do not decide to terminate a pregnancy on a whim. In those days, such acts were punishable by imprisonment. The country needed to compensate for the losses of the population.
But each family had its own material capabilities, all people had their own motives. Therefore, not everyone acted in accordance with the policy of the state. Therefore, women deprived the nascent life of chances for further development. Rarely did anyone dare to liquidate their first-borns in this way.
Family and work
Of course, Pavel Alekseevich understood that by his actions he saved not only the life of the patient herself, but also her other children. If the nurse, often the only one, died or was imprisoned, the fate of the homeless children did not bother anyone, and orphanages of that time were not at all a place for babies. Therefore, the verdict "illegal abortion" in the case of the patient's recovery never appeared in the medical record. Such a diagnosis was made only after the death of the unfortunate.
The main character of the novel is a man with a big heart. Kukotsky advocated the legalization of abortion. He tried with all his might to achieve this, used his influence on the medical elite to obtain permission to carry out the operation in a hospital setting.
The specialist argued his conclusions not only with facts from life, creepy examples, he clearly showed folk methods of terminating pregnancy. Lyudmila Ulitskaya gave readers a description of a doctor by vocation.
In addition to professional training, Kukotsky is endowed with a real gift. He sees human ailments through a person. The doctor himself called this intravision. The ability is muted by the need for direct contact with patients. However, this did not interfere with the arrangement of the doctor's personal life.
Kukotsky's wife Elena was once his patient. Pavel Alekseevich operated on a woman during the Patriotic War. Tatiana, her child from her first marriage, was accepted by the doctor as his own daughter. He never regretted the impossibility of the chosen one to give him children. The doctor also sheltered the former nun Vasilisa, who had helped Elena's family for many years.
The harmony was destroyed by a quarrel. The wife did not understand the desire of her husband to legalize abortion, he could not resist and reminded his wife of infertility. Relationships after disagreements boiled down only to conversations during lunch. The specialist lacked neither sensitivity nor tolerance for his own family. However, he did not leave Tamara without guardianship.
Tanya and Tom
The daughter of the doctor's ward, a female janitor, was left without a mother, who died after an unsuccessful termination of pregnancy. The writer deliberately opposes two girls to each other.
Everyone likes beautiful Tanya. Timid Toma lives in the house out of pity for her. Pretty effective Tanya is invited to parties, Tom goes with her "in the bargain". Tanya is loved, but Tom is tolerated. The story, recognizable by many, is embedded in the novel.
The book tells not only that some people get universal sympathy for their beautiful eyes, while others have to seek recognition and love. In the long run, both of them benefit from everything that happens. However, the feeling of pain from the fact that no one even tries to hide their "patient" attitude does not diminish.
Tatiana's moral choice was made by her once and for all. She decided not to have anything to do with biology, as her father recommended. He made several observational reasons. Among them are the desire of professors to seduce freshmen, and the heartlessness of medical workers who seek to distance themselves from human grief for the sake of maintaining mental health.
They choose to treat a person as an object, which they consider a necessary condition for treatment. Therefore, the girl leaves with the first comer, making a natural conclusion for herself.
Tamara chose a different path. She studied hard, became a biologist, got married and earned a good reputation. It was Toma who continued the work of Pavel Alekseevich. She chose life, albeit slightly bland, but more correct than Tanina.
Features of the plot
Tatiana, for the time being, did not love anyone. Having learned that she was expecting a child, she married according to the calculations in order to protect her husband from the army. At a respectable stage of pregnancy, she fell in love with Sergei, a musician. She met a person with whom she wished to go through life together. After the birth of her daughter Zhenya, Tatiana decided to give birth to a baby from her beloved. However, the desired pregnancy brought her death. This would not have been allowed by the adoptive father, but it was not he who watched the daughter: together with a new friend, Tanya left for the Crimea.
Endurance does not change Kukotsky even in difficult situations. Upon arrival at the maternity hospital, where his adopted daughter died, he primarily deals with prevention to save other patients from repeating the fate of Tanya. Only after that does he give free rein to emotions. Elena, meanwhile, closes in on herself. She sees amazing dreams about rebirth and the past, the decision of fate. The entire second part of the novel is devoted to these visions.
At first glance, daydreaming seems like a sign of insanity. But behind them lies the mystery of human existence. With descriptions of such tragic events of the reader, Ulitskaya keeps the whole story in suspense.
Zhenya visits her grandmother weekly, not paying attention to the late stages of her pregnancy. The finale tells about the fate of all the heroes. They are closely related by memories of Tanya and Pavel Alekseevich.
The book deals with several incidents. For Kukotsky, the basis for breaking off family relations with his wife was the idea of legalizing abortion. However, it was the doctor's arguments and examples that forced the officials to adopt this law. The doctor who saved many lives lost his beloved child due to infection during pregnancy. Vasilisa, who lived for more than two decades in the house, suffered from prolapse of the uterus, but did not tell the specialist about her problem, being interested only in household needs.
