At the present time the novels of Márko Vovtchók may seem to be too sentimental--the world-famed novel of Harriett Beecher Stowe produces the same impression nowadays--but in those years, when the great question for Russia was whether the serfs should be freed or not, and when all the best forces of the country were needed for the struggle in favour of their emancipation--in those years all educated Russia read the novels of Márko Vovtchók with delight, and wept over the fate of her peasant heroines. However, apart from this need of the moment--and art is bound to be at the service of society in such crises--the sketches of Márko Vovtchók had serious qualities. Their “sentimentalism” was not the sentimentalism of the beginning of the nineteenth century, behind which was concealed an absence of real feeling. A loving heart throbbed in them; and there is in them real poetry, inspired by the poetry of the Ukraïnian folklore and its popular songs. With these, Mme. Márkovitch was so familiar that, as has been remarked by Russian critics, she supplemented her imperfect knowledge of real popular life by introducing in a masterly manner many features inspired by the folklore and the popular songs of Little Russia. Her heroes were invented, but the atmosphere of a Little-Russian village, the colours of local life, are in these sketches; and the soft poetical sadness of the Little-Russian peasantry is rendered with the tender touch of a woman’s hand. Among the novelists of that period DANILÉVSKIY (1829-1890) must also be mentioned. Although he is better known as a writer of historical romances, his three long novels, _The Runaways in Novoróssiya_ (1862), _Freedom, or The Runways Returned_ (1863), and _New Territories_ (1867)--all dealing with the free settlers in Bessarabia--were widely read. They contain lively and very sympathetic scenes from the life of these settlers--mostly runaway serfs--who occupied the free lands, without the consent of the central government, in the newly annexed territories of southwestern Russia, and became the prey of enterprising adventurers. INTERMEDIATE PERIOD