The Black Council gives a vivid picture of the different levels of society in seventeenth-century Ukraine. The main theme is the need for people to be motivated by high ideals as they engage in the struggle of truth with injustice.
The story about the fate of Andrii Chumak, who escapes from the train, which had to arrive him to Siberian concentration camps. He gets to the Ukrainian village where he is harboring. There he also meets his love.