648. Ukraine under the oppression of Poland. Polish nobility committing outrage, burning villages one after another. Hetman of Zaporozhian Cossacks Bohdan Khmelnytskyi gathers the army of defenders of the motherland.

1914, Imperial Russia. A group of Ukrainian peasants searching for a better life in the Taurida steppe end up working at the landholding of the aristocratic Falz-Fein family. Friends Vustya and Hanna are courted by a revolutionary and the landowner's son, both rising their hopes and dreams.