The book by a specialist in the medieval Russian history is started with a declaration that the sources of the Russian culture had laid in the natural evolution of Slavic people formed by a mixture of various tribes; the author stressed a special role of Scythians in that shaping of the culture. The Slavs had been well-known since the eighth century through their trade communication with neighbouring peoples. The mid-flow of the Dnieper River was that region which felt some influence of the Roman culture; there, in the sixth—eighth centuries, contacts with the East also were built. Analyzing monuments of the Late Dnieper artistic culture, G. offered some ideas about its dissemination and peculiarities. On the base of archaeological data, he argued that before Riurik, in various parts of the future Rus’ there were large trade and craft centres.
According to G., the religious mentality of Slavs was transformed through the time: initially, they venerated Upyri and Beregini, later — Rod and Rozhanitsy, later — Perun, and later their religious ideas were transformed under the state demands in unification. Christianization was conforming to the natural development; it was prepared with all the history of East Slavs. The author evaluated Byzantine Christianity as ‘more tolerable’ than Catholic variant, and made accent at the shaping of the national Church and ‘Russification’ of religion. At that, the common folk slowly accepted Christianization; that is why a specific form of syncretic religion has been shaped. The author criticized the concept of ‘double faith’, stressing that there was one religion. He gave numerous examples of transformation of Byzantine culture in Kievan Rus’, and of the development of the Russian culture.
In the final part of his book, ‘The Attitude of Russian people to Its Historical Past’, G. stressed the importance of analysis of the pre-writing period of the history through the data on storytellers, and folk materials. He offered to look at the ‘Primary Chronicle’ as a source undeservedly criticized — according to G., it could provide historians with data on the great history of Russian people. He was sure that compilers of chronicles conducted struggle for each fact, and so — in spite of numerous editing — the chronicles held rare information about the history of Rus’.