Woland

Woland (Russian: Воланд) is a fictional character in the 1967 novel The Master and Margarita by the Russian (Soviet) author Mikhail Bulgakov. Woland is the mysterious foreigner and professor whose visit to Moscow sets the plot rolling and turns the world upside-down. Different people see him in different ways: "[t]he first says that the [he] was short, had gold teeth, and limped on the right foot. The second, that the man was of enormous height, had platinum crowns, and limped on the left foot. The third states laconically that the man had no special distinguishing characteristics."

Woland's name itself is a variant of the name of a demon who appears in Goethe's Faust: the knight Voland or Faland. This link is made tighter by the quotation from Faust at the beginning of the novel. However, Woland is seldom called by his name. His band refer to him as "messire", a French honorific title meaning "sire" or "master" and given to priests, advocates, etc.

His demonic retinue, which includes witches, vampires, and a gigantic talking cat, his role in the plot, and the fact that Voland is a (now outdated) German word for a devil or evil spirit, all imply that he is, in fact, the Devil. More controversial interpretations see him as the Apostle Peter (based on Jesus's remark to Peter "Get thee behind me, Satan") or even the Second Coming of Christ.