The Peasants tells the story of a beautiful young Polish girl, Jagna (Kamila Urzędowska), who was sold into a marriage to the richest man in the village – an older widower named Boryna (Mirosław Baka). The price is high – six acres of Boryna’s best land – but then, as Jagna’s mother knows: “Love comes and goes but land stays.” The girl herself, of course, does not matter and has no say.
Jagna’s story is based on Polish author Władysław Reymont’s novel, The Peasants, published in four volumes between 1904 and 1909. The Peasants focuses on the arduous life of the Polish peasant, but the story it tells is universally familiar. In 1924, Reymont received the Nobel prize in literature for his “great national epic”, which has been a classic of Polish literature ever since.
