From the life of one of the leading Kuban horse breeding collective farms. Veterinarian Mitrich, a disguised enemy who follows all the instructions of yesaul Soroka, sets about the main task - to destroy the entire collective farm herd. But the criminals will be detained on time, and in the autumn the collective farm will see off young Cossacks to the Red Army.

The German conquerors are above nothing, not even the slaughter of small children, to break the spirit of their Soviet captives. Suffering more than most is Olga (Nataliya Uzhviy), a Soviet partisan who returns to the village to bear her child, only to endure the cruelest of arbitrary tortures at the hands of the Nazis. Eventually, the villagers rise up against their oppressors-but unexpectedly do not wipe them out, electing instead to force the surviving Nazis to stand trial for their atrocities in a postwar "people's court." (It is also implied that those who collaborated with the Germans will be dealt with in the same evenhanded fashion).

Episodic story of the resistance to the German invasion of the Ukraine in 1918 during World War 1, and made as an example of the guerrilla warfare and fierce spirit in which Ukrainian peasants were again resisting Teuton onslaughts in 1939. Highlights a small band of guerrillas and their battles using scythes, shotguns and, often, just clubs against the Kaiser's army in the Ukrainian forests.

Construction of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station began in 1927. The subsequent flooding of the Dnipro rapids forever changes the ancient way of life of farmers from coastal villages. However, the old maritime pilot Ostap Kovban is in no hurry to accept progress. Only his own son Andriy stands in his way.