The story offers a humorous account of how a Slavophile and his children were “Germanized”—they get baptized into the Lutheran faith by trickery, even though, according to the laws of the Russian Empire, they should be baptized Orthodox, by their father.
In contrast to the German idea of national exclusivity and superiority, Leskov presents a different type of Russian person: hot-blooded, straightforward, and inconsistent—someone who draws sympathy even with all their shortcomings.