Writing
The film is set on an island in the Pacific where a hydrogen bomb is being tested. A group of local fishermen die from radiation sickness. The inventor of the bomb, American scientist Thomas Sherwood, also receives a large dose of radiation and is now terminally ill. Once he professed the theory of "redemption through his own suffering," but now, in the face of death, he realized that such atonement does not benefit anyone.
The February Revolution did not bring the desired peace to the trenches. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, deceived by Kerensky's government, are dying on the slopes of the Carpathians. But the words of Bolshevik truth penetrate the trenches, and the soldiers refuse to go to the slaughter. Among the front-line soldiers returning home is a young Ukrainian named Taras Holota. He dreams of joyful reunions, but instead attends the funeral of his mother, who was killed by the Haidamaks. The landless peasantry is starving, and Golota rallies his fellow villagers to divide up the landowners' fields...
The action takes place in Odesa in 1918-1919. At the request of General Denikin, a French squadron arrives in Odesa to restore order in the city. Odesa Bolsheviks are trying to convince the sailors to leave the city. At the center of the story is the heroic fate of Frenchwoman Jeanne-Marie Lyabourb (1877-1919), shot by French interventionists.
World War II separates lovers Oksana and Anton. The young man is taken prisoner by the Germans, while his beloved abandons her studies at the conservatory to become a frontline nurse. Despite all the hardships, their paths cross again.
In order not to hand over grain to the state at fixed prices, a rich peasant (kulak) buries 600 pounds of grain in the ground. Meanwhile, a communist worker arrives in the village of Gorbani to organize grain procurements. In the fight against kulaks, he manages to win over the poor villagers to his side.
The events of the film cover the story of the Kotsiubynsky family in the years 1912-1918, ending with the defeat of the Central Rada and the establishment of a Soviet republic in Ukraine in the spring of 1918.
