The monograph opens with a survey of the information about Sakas, which was available for scholars of the second third of the nineteenth century. Moving on to the description of the differences between nomadic and sedentary way of life, critically important for the identification of Sakas, beside other things, G. draws attention to the higher and more independent position of women among the eastern nomads than among the sedentary peoples. Sakas are identified by the author as Aryans, who settled on Jaxart in the sixth century BCE. Assuming the presence of only two Aryan peoples in that region at the period in question – Germans and Slavs (whom he does not separate from Baltic tribes), G. comes to the conclusion that Sakas were Slavs; so, he built some etymological constructions of Sakas terms and names on the base of Slavic languages, including Russia. Noteworthy, he explains a female name of Sparetra as ‘Mother of the Sun’ and compares this name with the “gynecocratic period of the development of peoples”. The second part of the book is mainly centered on the refutation of the theory of the Turkic origin of Sakas and on the systematization of information about them.

This work reflects, firstly, the general context of the historiosophic concepts of Russian culture in the middle – second half of the nineteenth century. (for example, the establishment of a connection between Sakas and Slavs correlates with the identification of Scythians as Slavs, which, in turn, could be traced back to V.N. Tatishchev); and, secondly, the context of the early stage in the development of Indo-European studies. Nowadays, this book is of an antiquarian importance only.