книга "Master and Margarita" — Михаил Афанасьевич БулгаковThe novel alternates between two settings. The first is 1930s Moscow, where Satan appears at the Patriarch Ponds in the guise of "Professor" Woland, a mysterious gentleman "magician" of uncertain origin. He arrives with a retinue that includes the grotesquely dressed valet Koroviev the mischievous, gun-happy, fast-talking black cat Behemoth the fanged hitman Azazello the pale-faced Abadonna and the witch Hella. They wreak havoc targeting the literary elite and its trade union MASSOLIT. Its privileged HQ is Griboyedovs House and is made up of corrupt social climbers and their women (wives and mistresses alike), bureaucrats, profiteers, and, more generally, skeptical unbelievers in the human spirit. The second setting is the Jerusalem of Pontius Pilate, described by Woland in his conversations with Berlioz and later echoed in the pages of the Masters novel. This part of the novel concerns Pontius Pilates trial of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, his recognition of an affinity with, and spiritual need for, Yeshua and his reluctant but resigned submission to Yeshuas execution. Part one of the novel opens with a direct confrontation between the unbelieving head of the literary bureaucracy, Berlioz, and an urbane foreign gentleman (Woland) who defends belief and reveals his prophetic powers. Berlioz brushes off the prophecy of his death, only to have it come true just pages later in the novel. The fulfillment of this death prophecy is witnessed by a young and enthusiastically modern poet, Ivan Ponyrev, who writes his poems under the alias Bezdomny ("homeless"). | 
