Main Stage

Synopsis

ACT I

Scene 1

A February night in a Ukrainian village. Semyon Kotko, a young artilleryman awarded the St. George Cross, returns from the front line after four years of war. He wants to surprise his mother with his soldierly demeanor, but upon hearing her beloved voice can’t find any other words than ‘Mother!’

Scene 2

The villagers gather to see Semyon, who has returned from the line. His younger sister Frosya brings Sofya, his intended bride, daughter of a prosperous peasant, Nikanor Tkachenko. Before the war, Semyon’s matchmakers were rejected: Nikanor Vasilievich did not want his only daughter to marry a poor man. But during the war, Semyon saved Tkachenko from a firing squad, so Nikanor Vasilievich promised to give Sofya his blessing.

However, Semyon fears that the cunning Tkachenko could change his mind. Savvy Frosya advises him to choose the matchmakers whom Tkachenko won’t be able to refuse: Remenyuk, a former katorga convict sentenced for killing a village constable and now the chairman of the village council, and Tsarev, a sailor from the Black Sea Fleet. Semyon asks these ‘independent men’ for help, and they agree.

Scene 3

Annoyed by the return of Semyon, Sofya’s father tries to hide from the approaching matchmakers but fails. He has to welcome the uninvited guests. Young men and women join them. They all dignify the groom and the bride, but suddenly the fun is interrupted by the German soldiers, who demand provisions and threaten to arrest Remenyuk. Though the Germans get disarmed, the situation remains tense, so Remenyuk orders the communists to leave the village, and tells Semyon to hide the weapons and ‘guard the rear’. The courtship fails, and Tkachenko triumphs: in his house he has been hiding a former landowner Klembovsky, willing to marry Sofya off to him, making her a noblewoman. Tkachenko and Klembovsky await the return of the Germans, believing that the old order will return with them.

ACT II

At night, couples stroll through the village streets – Semyon and Sofya, Lyubka and Tsarev, Frosya and Mikola. Tkachenko tells Sofya to come home, he is delaying the wedding until autumn, hoping to break off her engagement to Semyon by then. An advanced Haydamak platoon enters the village. Following a tip-off from Tkachenko, the Haydamaks execute the sailor Tsarev and Mikola’s father, an elderly Klim Ivasenko. Witnessing her fiancé’s death, Lyubka loses her mind.
In the morning, a German unit arrives. Tkachenko gives a list of unreliable peasants to Oberleutnant von Wierhof, underscoring Semyon. Sofya warns her beloved of the danger. Semyon and Mikola Ivasenko decide to flee to the rebels in the woods. But before that, they take the bodies of Tsarev and Ivasenko down from the hanging tree and kill the German sentry with a shot.
Furious, von Wierhof orders to burn down Kotko’s house as a punishment for the death of a German soldier.

ACT III

Scene 1

In the woods, Semyon and Mikola eventually find the camp of the rebels led by Remenyuk, who has become the squad leader. They bury Ivasenko and Tsarev. Everyone swears to fight to the end for people’s happiness against the foreign yoke. They swear to avenge the terrible deaths of their comrades.

Scene 2

In the May wood, Semyon is teaching his fellow villagers the science of artillery. Tattered and poverty-ridden, Frosya comes there from the village. She tells then about the violence of the invaders and reveals that Tkachenko plans to marry Sofya off to Klembovsky. Semyon wants to rush to his fiancee’s rescue, but Remenyuk refuses to waste the unit’s forces.

Semyon is in despair. But luckily for him, a messenger delivers an order for the rebels to prepare the area for the arrival of the Red Army by exploding the German headquarters and spreading panic behind the enemy lines. As the headquarters is located in Semyon’s village, he and Mikola are the ones to lead a reconnaissance-in-force.

Scene 3

The village square in front of the church. Semyon’s mother stands on the church porch. The wedding begins – but Semyon and Mikola manage to interrupt the ceremony. Klembovsky is wounded in the head. The Haydamaks seize the rebels, and von Wierhof orders to have them executed by firing squad; a public execution is being prepared. In a shed, Tkachenko reads the sentence to Semyon and mocks him. However, the Germans learn of the Red Army’s advance and quietly leave the village. When Tkachenko brings Semyon and Mikola out for execution, he finds himself alone. The approaching insurgents disarm him, and Remenyuk gives the order: ‘Left turn.’
Semyon and Sofya and Frosya and Mikola are dreaming of celebrating their two weddings. But Semyon receives an order to report to the battery commander, who is short of gunners. The girls are allowed to stay with their fiancés in the unit. Semyon has come back from the line – and returns to it once more.