A story about Oles Shevchenko, a man who never abandoned his life's work—the struggle for human rights and the rights of the nation. Oles Shevchenko admits that he became a dissident in ninth grade, because even then he did not accept the system that prevailed during Stalin's time and felt that life should not be like that. And this resistance grew steadily. At first, young Oles, while studying at university, boldly asked his teachers why lectures were given in Russian, and then joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, which united dissidents who did not want to and could not live under the Soviet system. Then came arrest, charges of crimes against the Soviet Union, trial, sentence, and long years of exile. Only four years before Ukraine gained independence was Oles Shevchenko released by the system he had fought against all his life.