This outstanding work was the first survey of such type in Russia. It was compiled on the base of articles published in the ‘Vestnik Evropy’ Magazine. The author defined the general aim and specific tasks of his work in the introduction: “Only in the recent years, not earlier than in 1840-s, Russian ethnography got the character of real research discipline. In our explication, we put attention at the most important facts of this history… we would like to distribute historical data on the topic, so close to the interests of all enlightened people, among the broadest circle of readers, not only among a narrow circle of specialists”.
The work by P. gives a picture of the development of Russian ethnography on the background of the history of Russian social thought, and shows the interconnection of development of ethnography, folkloristic, philology, history, and Slavic studies. A survey of the historiography is important for understanding of key social and political discussions in Russia un the eighteenth – nineteenth centuries: on people and common day life, on folk and literary language, on the ‘love to people’, on Russian epos, and the history of Old Rus’, on national renaissances, and Slavophilic views; the work also contains important data on studying Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Polish folklore, and ethnography, on studying Siberian peoples, and ethnography of Russian population of Siberia, and others.