January 7, 1918: Orthodox Christmas Day in a Russian prison camp in war-torn Ukraine. Mass revolts against the Tsar in Kiev and Austro-Hungarian rule in L'viv are ripping the old order apart. The First World War in Eastern Europe is ending, but Ukraine's fight against the world is beginning. Two Ukrainian brothers conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army, Andriy and Bohdan Kozak, are wasting away behind enemy wire where their only gifts for the occasion are cold and despair. Their fortunes improve when a defecting Ukrainian tsarist officer, Vitaliy, helps them escape death by their captors.
They narrowly escape into the arms of their Ukrainian countrymen who were also forced to fight for foreign armies, but are now fighting for Ukrainian independence. After a harrowing journey, they finally reach their village, or what is left, only to face another daunting task. Their father, Anatoliy, asks them to help their dying mother by reaching their uncle Stefan, who is a doctor in Kiev.
On their journey, they find old friends and fight new enemies as they battle their way to Kiev and beyond with the help of their Cossack kin. They even manage to find beauty in this "no man's land" when a courageous Cossack woman, Marusia, steals their hearts. Each homecoming is not always heartwarming with war, pestilence and famine reaping their bitter harvest. The Kozak family grows stronger with each new challenge until their world yet again goes up in smoke with only themselves left to extinguish the flames.
