The script of the series was based on the themes of Ewa Szelburg-Zarembina's novel series. The personal tragedies of people coming from the poor social strata are presented against the background of the independence and revolutionary movements in the Russian partition at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The film shows their struggle to survive while maintaining their dignity. It is also a story about the origin of a large part of the Polish intelligentsia. The main character of the series is Joanna, an orphaned girl, stubbornly looking for happiness, whose life fell on the turbulent historical events in which Poles participated, from the 1905 revolution to World War I.