Woland
Woland is the novel’s central character. He is Satan, choosing to adopt the form of Woland for his visit to Moscow. A paradoxical figure, Woland is both manipulative and honorable, ruthless and generous. His physical…
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Margarita
Margarita is the heroine of the novel, a woman of around thirty years of age. Though she is married to someone else, her true love is the master, though she does not know if he…
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The Master
The master is one of the two titular characters. He is a weary man who has given up on life. The reader learns most of his back story when the master clambers through Ivan’s…
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Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate is the fifth procurator of Judea and the subject of the master’s novel. His story represents the counterpoint narrative to the main action in Moscow, and centers on his decision to approve…
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Yeshua Ha-Nozri
Yeshua’s name is the Aramaic for Jesus of Nazareth. Yeshua is a vital character but actually does not appear much in the novel. Yeshua is brought before Pontius Pilate, accused of wanting to incite…
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Matthew Levi
Levi is Yeshua Ha-Nozri’s only disciple during the Yershalaim narrative. Levi tries to shorten Yeshua’s suffering by stabbing him but can’t get close enough to the execution; once Yeshua does die, Levi cuts down…
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Ivan “Homeless” Nikolaevich Ponyrev
Ivan is a young, misguided poet. The novel both starts and ends with him. In the novel’s opening, Ivan discusses a recent poem of his with Berlioz, who is telling him that the poem…
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Mikhael Alexandrovich Berlioz
Berlioz is the chairman of Massolit, the writers’ union and the editor of a literary journal. He is a middle-aged man and prides himself on his atheism, rationality, and learnedness. Berlioz appears in the novel’s…
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Styopa Likhodeev
On the second day of the novel, Styopa, the director of the Variety theater, wakes up in the apartment he shares with Berlioz nursing a terrible hangover. He is flabbergasted to see Woland sitting in…
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Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy
Nikanor is the chairman of the tenants’ association asked with overseeing apartment no. 50, Berlioz’s property that is taken over by Woland and his entourage. Nikanor tries to behave in an officious manner and…
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Koroviev
Koroviev is Woland’s right-hand man. He usually wears a pince-nez, a jockey’s cap and chequered clothes. Koroviev is adept at manipulating the Muscovites into showing the worst of themselves, for example, by convincing Nikanor…
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Behemoth
Behemoth is huge black cat who can do everything that a human can do, including talking and walking on his hind legs. He is the most devilish of Woland’s crew and delights in causing…
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Azazello
Azazello is a key member of Woland’s entourage. He is described as a short, fat, and broad-shouldered man whose mouth shows a single fang. His hair is flaming red and he often wears a…
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Hella
Hella is a beautiful redheaded succubus and part of Woland’s entourage. She is a vampire and almost always appears naked. Administering care is part of her role in the group: she rubs Woland’s injured…
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Natasha
Natasha is Margarita’s devoted housemaid. When Margarita turns into a witch and leaves her old life behind, Natasha uses Azazello’s cream to become a witch herself. She then rides a hog—actually the neighbor…
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Nikolai Ivanovich
Nikolai is Margarita’s officious neighbor (where she lives with her husband, not the master). When Natasha becomes a witch by using Azazello’s cream (as Margarita has already done), Nikolai is astonished by…
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Abaddon
Abaddon shows up late in the novel and is one of Woland’s demons. He represents destruction incarnate and is described by Woland as having a “rare impartiality”; that is, his destruction is not tempered…
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Grigory Danilovich Rimsky
Rimsky is the financial director of the Variety theater. He tries to find out where Styopa has gone but nearly meets a terrible end when Hella and Varenukha, now a vampire, try to attack…
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Judas of Kiriath
Judas is a young man who works in a money-changing shop. He meets Yeshua and under false pretenses tricks him into criticizing the state authorities (who are lying in wait to arrest him). Judas is…
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Joseph Kaifa
Joseph Kaifa is the high priest of the Jews. He is insistent that Yeshua must be executed, instead choosing to pardon Bar-Rabbin (it is customary to pardon one prisoner on the eve of Passover). It…
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Banga
Banga is Pontius Pilate’s faithful dog, one of the only sources of joy in the procurator’s life. When Pilate waits for two thousand years to be set free from the torture he feels for…
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Baron Meigel
Baron Meigel is an employee of the “Spectacles Commission” who offers Woland assistance in Moscow. Woland suspects him of espionage, however, and lures him to the Satan’s Ball. Here, Baron Meigel is shot by Koroviev…
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Frieda
Frieda is a guest at Satan’s Ball. Her soul is damned because she suffocated her baby boy with her handkerchief. The child, however, was probably the result of a rape by the owner of a…
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Bar-Rabban
Bar-Rabban is the criminal due to be executed alongside Yeshua Ha-Nozri and two others. Because it is Passover, it is customary for the Jewish leadership to set one man free. Though Pontius Pilate tries to…
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Alexander Riukhin
Riukhin is a poet who helps transport Ivan Homeless from the restaurant at Griboedov’s to Stravinsky’s clinic. Ivan, distressed from his experience with Woland and Patriarch’s Pond, tells Riukhin that he thinks he is…
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Maximillian Andreevich Poplavsky
Poplavsky is Berlioz’s uncle, who comes to Moscow from Kiev after receiving a strange telegram from his nephew informing his uncle that his funeral will soon be taking place. Poplavsky travels to Moscow more…
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Arkady Apollonovich
Arkady is the smug and rotund chairman of the Moscow Theaters’ “Acoustics Commission.” He appears during Woland’s Variety performance, demanding from his seat that the magicians explain what they are doing. Koroviev informs the…
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Aloisy Mogarych
Aloisy is the man who took over the master’s old apartment when the master was admitted to Dr. Stavinsky’s clinic. Woland makes him appear before them; Koroviev deletes Aloisy’s name from the apartment…
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Andrei Fokich Sokov
Andrei is the barman and buffet manager of the Variety theater. After Woland’s “black magic séance,” the theater customers use money from the show at the bar and buffet. When this money later turns…
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Minor Characters
Archibald Archibaldovich
Archibald is the manager of the restaurant at Griboedev’s. At the end of novel, when Koroviev and Behemoth visit the restaurant, Archibald tries to have them captured by the authorities. This fails, and they burn Griboedev’s to the ground.
Ivan Savalyevich Varenukha
Varenukha is the administrator of the Variety theater. When he tries to find out what’s happened to Styopa, he is ambushed and beaten by Behemoth and Koroviev. Hella then kisses Varenukha, turning him into a vampire.
Dr. Stravinsky
Stravinsky runs the psychiatric clinic at which both Ivan Homeless and the master are patients.
Mark Ratslayer
Ratslayer is the cruel and disfigured centurion (soldier) most favored by Pontius Pilate. He is known for his brutality and unflinching lack of emotion.
Aphranius
Aphranius is the shadowy figure that serves as Pontius Pilate’s head of secret police. Practically nothing happens in Yershalaim without him knowing about it. He helps orchestrate the scenario in which Pilate can murder Judas, revenge for Judas turning in Yeshua to the authorities.
Niza
Niza is the woman who, on Aphranius’s instruction, lures Judas outside of Yershalaim so that he can be murdered.
Dysmas
Dysmas is one of the other men executed at the same time as Yeshua Ha-Nozri.
Gestas
Gestas is one of the other men executed at the same time as Yeshua Ha-Nozri.
Zheldybin
Zheldybin is Berlioz’s assistant at Massolit, the writers’ union. When Berlioz dies, Zheldybin harbors the ambition that he can take over the top job.
Grunya
Grunya is the housemaid of Styopa Likhodeev. However, she never actually appears in the novel, having been made to disappear by Woland.
Anna Richardovna
Anna is Prokhor Petrovich’s secretary, understandably distraught when her boss is turned into a walking, talking suit.
Prokhor Petrovich
Prokhor is the chairman of the “Commission on Spectacles and Entertainment of the Lighter Type.” He is, in a way, most notable for his absence: Behemoth turns him into an empty—but still talking and gesturing—suit.
Georges Bengalsky
Bengalsky is the master of ceremonies at the Variety theater. He is temporarily decapitated by Behemoth as part of the black magic séance show. Bengalsky has a breakdown from the distress and ends up in Dr. Stravinsky’s clinic.
Annushka
Annushka is the old woman who inadvertently causes Berlioz’s death by spilling sunflower oil near the tram line. She lives below apartment no. 50 and, late in the book, tries to steal the jeweled horseshoe that Woland gifts to Margarita.
Latunsky
Latunsky heads up the editorial board that rejects the master’s Pontius Pilate novel (in the master’s back story). Latunsky also published an article damning the master’s work. Margarita takes revenge on Latunsky when, turned into a witch, she flies to his apartment and wrecks it.
Vassily Stepanovich Lastochkin
Vassily is the Variety Theater’s book-keeper, surprised to find himself in charge of the theater when everyone in positions above him goes missing.
Professor Kuzmin
Professor Kuzmin is the doctor who treats Andrei Fokich Sokov when he is told by Woland that he will soon die of liver cancer. After Andrei’s visit, Woland and his gang play tricks on Professor Kuzmin.