An adaptation of Pushkin's historical novel about the Pugachev's Rebellion in 1773–1774.
In a small Tatar village during the traditional holiday of the beginning of plowing, monks appear accompanied by soldiers. Trying to convert the local population to Orthodoxy by force, the monks and soldiers meet a tough rebuff from the locals. The wife of the peasant Bulat dies, and his son Asfan is taken away in an unknown direction.
A young Belarussian man joins Soviet partisans in order to fight Polish occupational forces in Belarus.
