Michael Gann

Based on the famous operetta, Natalka Poltavka was the first Ukrainian film directed in the USA. Natalka and Petro want to get married, but Natalka's father doesn't approve of the marriage — there are more affluent men in the village. Petro goes off to earn the required fortune.

In Ukraine, in 1775, the Zaporogian Cossacks learn that Moscow is sending soldiers to destroy their fort. The Ukrainian villagers appeal to Czarina Catherine, but she insists that they join the Russian army or risk annihilation. Instead, the Cossacks burn their fort and flee on the Danube River to Turkey, where they live in peace, but still yearn for their homeland.

Documentary-filmed events in the Carpatho-Ukraine (aka Ruthenia) during 1939 drive this history of the Ukraine's struggle for independence as a nation.