Count L.N.Tolstoy greatly admired (he told me) Lyeskoff's "At the End of the World," a tale of missionary effort in Siberia, which is equally delightful in its way, though less great.
Towards the end of his career, Lyeskoff was inclined to mysticism, and began to work over ancient religious legends, or to invent new ones in the same style.[34] The direct and immediate result of the democratic tendency on Russian thought and attraction to the common people during this era was the creation of a school of writers who devoted themselves almost exclusively to that sphere, in addition to the contributions from Turgeneff, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky.

Among these was a well-known woman writer, Marya Alexandrovna Markovitch, who published her first Little Russian Tales, in 1859, under the name of "Marko Vovtchek." She immediately translated them into Russian, and they were printed in the best journals of the day.

I.S.Turgeneff translated one volume into Russian (for her Little Russian language was not of the supreme quality that characterized Shevtchenko's, which needed no translating), and Dobroliuboff, an authoritative critic of that period, expressed himself in the most flattering manner about them.

But her fame withered away as quickly as it had sprung up.

The weak points of her tales had been pardoned because of their political contents; in ten years they had lost their charm, and their defects--a too superficial knowledge of the people's life, the absence of living, authentic coloring in portraiture, its restriction to general, stereotyped types, such as might have been borrowed from popular tales and ballads, and excess of sentimentality--became too apparent to be overlooked by a more enlightened public.
The only other woman writer of this period who acquired much reputation may be mentioned here, although she cannot be classed strictly with portrayers of the people: Nadezhda Dmitrievna Khvoshtchinsky, whose married name was Zaiontchkovsky, and who wrote under the pseudonym of "V.