A biopic based on the life of Russian scientist and doctor Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov (1810-1881), famous for being the founder of field surgery.

A 1945 Soviet war film which, along with the second part of Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible was harshly criticized by Andrei Zhdanov and banned. A version of the film, released in 1956 during the Khrushchev Thaw, was disowned by director Grigori Kozintsev because the reediting was done without his participation.