It is difficult to guess right away that a "foreign consultant" will turn out to be the devil himself. The demon Abadonna, the vampiress Gella, the cat Behemoth, Koroviev-Fagot, Azazello - all these characters were part of the retinue of Woland: the cloaked Satan, who heads the gang.
The author did not choose the names of his heroes in the novel “The Master and Margarita” by chance. All of these cryptic nicknames are derived from Greek and Hebrew words. Developing into a masterfully depicted M. A. Bulgakov's "devilish deck", each of the dark creatures appears in its own specific guise.
Abadonna
The demon of war, a cold-blooded killer - the figure of a thin man in dark glasses that suddenly emerged from the wall in front of Margarita is exactly him, Abadonna. The word "abaddon" is of Semitic origin, and in Hebrew it means "extermination", "destruction". For many Semitic peoples inhabiting the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, this was the name of the sun god. But the Sun in these parts was not an affectionate Russian "sun", but an incinerating killer, from which one must run, hide and hide.
Transferred to the pantheon of ancient Greek gods, Abaddon also acquired another variation of the name: "Apollyon". Among the Greeks, he was also a destroyer and a merciless killer. The image of the Sun was poetically endowed with a bow with striking arrows, while the fighter later became the patron of the arts and the owner of a host of beauties muses. In the "devil's deck" Abadonna is a jack.
Hella
“A girl opened the door, on whom there was nothing but a flirty lace apron … the only defect in her appearance could be considered a crimson scar on her neck,” - this is how Bulgakov acquaints the reader with the image of the mistress of the “raspberry”, the vampiress Gella. The very name Gella is of ancient Greek origin. On the island of Lesbos, far from all the inhabitants of which are lesbians, this was the name for the prematurely dead girls who turned into vampires after death. Even "raspberry" is associated not with a sweet forest berry, but with a distorted Semitic word "meluna", meaning "kennel" and "shelter".
Cat hippo
You cannot do without linguistic analysis when considering this active, charming character. "Behemoth" in Hebrew is called a beast, cattle, and "Behemoth" is the plural of this word. So, assuming the guise of a huge black cat - one of the favorite guises of the demon of carnal desires - a thousand-faced wild beast appeared in the novel.
Koroviev-Fagot
The bassoon has no connection with the woodwind instrument in the context of The Master and Margarita. The name of this demon refers the thoughtful reader to the ancient Greek "phago" - "devour". So the grimacing Koroviev becomes a predator-devourer, an executor of "dirty deeds" under the strict guidance of the theorist Woland. "Works" Koroviev-Fagot in conjunction with Behemoth and Azazello.
Azazello
In pre-Muslim Arab legends, Azazel and Avvadon were murder brothers. Anyone who came under direct contact with Avadona's eyes was doomed to death, and the demon Azazel was to carry out the sentence. The Book of Enoch tells about the "merits" of this fallen angel before humanity: it was he who taught men to fight and make weapons, and women - to paint their faces and etch the fruit (this is how Azazel is described in the detective story of the same name by B. Akunin). In Bulgakov's novel, he appears as a murderer and seducer, who was sent to Margarita with a tempting and adventurous offer to fly to meet with Satan.
