A family saga of Barbara Ostrzeńska-Niechcic and Bogumił Niechcic against the backdrop of the January Uprising of 1863 and World War I. The film is a rather straightforward and faithful adaptation of a novel by Maria Dabrowska with the same title. The plot is woven around the changing fortunes of a noble (upper-class) Niechcic family in the pre-WWI Poland. There are two main crossing threads: a social history one and an existential one.
Set in the Kalisz Region in the second half of the 19th century after the failure of the January Uprising in 1863, the miniseries presents a unique portrait of an oppressed society as told through the life of the Niechcic family.