The film tells of the events of 1768 when a popular uprising against Polish oppression erupted on Right-Bank Ukraine. It attempts to portray one of the pages of the liberation movement in Ukraine - the uprising of the Koliiv (serfs, craftsmen and fishermen) against the arbitrariness of the feudal lords and the Polish nobility, which ended in a brutal massacre by the royal punitive expeditions in 1768. - The hero of the movie Semen the Inanimate, wandering around the country, returns to his native village, where he finds terrible poverty and hunger. The hero organizes poverty for the uprising, but his passionate soul does not see that his closest associates - representatives of Cossack elders Maxim Zaliznyak and Ivan Gonta - use uprising to their advantage. In the end, it is they who betray the rebels.