A film from the television documentary series Dissidents.

The story of Oles Shevchenko, a man who never gave up his life's work - the struggle for human rights and the rights of the nation.

Oles Shevchenko admits that he became a dissident in the ninth grade, because even then he did not accept the system that prevailed under Stalin and felt that this was not the way to live. And this resistance was constantly growing. First, while studying at the university, young Oles boldly asked his professors why lectures were given in Russian, and then he joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, which united dissidents who did not want and could not live in the Soviet system. And then there was his arrest, accusations of committing crimes against the Soviet Union, trial, sentence, and many years in exile. Only four years before Ukraine gained its independence, Oles Shevchenko was released by the system against which he had fought his entire life.