The first film in a duology based on the biography of Latvian revolutionary Jānis Fabricius. Mārtiņš Venta, the son of a forest ranger, enrolls in a Riga gymnasium and becomes an underground activist, while his classmate, Dace, a teacher's daughter, is expelled from the Riga school for singing the revolutionary song Kā gulbji balti padebeši iet. Dace becomes an actress, but Mārtiņš is drafted into the tsar's army. He refuses to participate in the shooting of a workers' demonstration and is sentenced to exile, but before his deportation, Mārtiņš is allowed to marry Dace in prison.

The dramatic fates of the Līdumu, Tauriņu, and Pacepļu families from the 1920s to the 1950s. The conflict between the Līdumu and Tauriņu dynasties as a class struggle, ending with the victory of the Līdumu family.

A man returns to his village after many years away with his new wife in tow.