The Master and Margarita

The novel alternates between two settings. The first is Moscow during the 1930s, where Satan appears at Patriarch's Ponds in the guise of "Professor Woland", a mysterious gentleman and "magician" of uncertain origin. He arrives with a retinue that includes the grotesquely dressed valet Koroviev; the mischievous, trigger-happy, fast-talking black cat Behemoth; the fanged hitman Azazello; and the female vampire Hella. They wreak havoc by targeting the literary elite and their trade union MASSOLIT.[note 1] Its privileged HQ is Griboyedov House. The association is made up of corrupt social climbers and their women (wives and mistresses alike), bureaucrats, profiteers, and, more generally, skeptics of the human spirit. The second setting is the Jerusalem of Pontius Pilate, described by Woland in his conversations with Berlioz and later reflected in the Master's novel. This part of the novel concerns Pontius Pilate's trial of Yeshua Ha-Notsri (Jesus of Nazareth), his recognition of an affinity with, and spiritual need for, Yeshua, and his reluctant but resigned submission to Yeshua's execution.©&℗ IE Vorobev V.A.; ©&℗ Publishing House Soyuz