The Peasants (2023) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Jagna became the scapegoat for every misfortune that befell Lipce, from the forest dispute and Boryna's injury to the drought that ruined the harvest. At a village meeting, the mayor's wife publicly accused her of inviting divine punishment through her promiscuity, and in a deeply religious, patriarchal community, a woman who challenged social norms was an easy target. The banishment was the collective punishment for behavior the village deemed immoral, regardless of the actual causes of their suffering.

Foreshadowing: Throughout the film, gossip about Jagna's affair and rumors about her influence over Boryna steadily accumulate, building toward the village's eventual condemnation.

• jagna
• banishment
• lipce
• villagers
• scandal
• drought

After being stripped, beaten, and dragged to the outskirts of Lipce, Jagna rises from the mud as rain washes over her and walks forward into an unknown future. The ending symbolizes her refusal to be destroyed by the collective cruelty of the community and reclaims a fragile autonomy for a woman who had been treated as property throughout the film. It is not a redemption or a happy ending, but an image of resilience in the face of total social destruction.

• ending
• jagna
• symbolism
• resilience
• final scene

With Boryna dead and Antek now the head of the Boryna household, the power dynamic shifted entirely in his favor, and he sought to reclaim Jagna as his possession. Their reunion at their old meeting spot was an attempt to restore what they had, but Antek's attraction had always been entangled with dominance rather than tenderness. The act of violence reflects how their relationship was rooted in ownership from the beginning, not love.

Foreshadowing: Antek's earlier possessiveness over Jagna and his willingness to defy his father for her hinted at the violent undertone of their bond.

• antek
• jagna
• assault
• reunion
• boryna death

Boryna was a widower who longed for companionship and wanted a young wife to manage his household and warm his home. The marriage also allowed him to reassert patriarchal control by claiming the woman his son was secretly seeing, which humiliated Antek and punished his defiance. The generous dowry of six acres of land sweetened the arrangement for Jagna's mother, who pressured Jagna into accepting despite her own feelings.

Foreshadowing: Early scenes establish Boryna as a wealthy but lonely widower whose household has been without a mistress since his first wife's death.

• boryna
• jagna
• marriage
• dowry
• widower
• dominance

By the time the village met to decide Jagna's fate, Antek had risen in social standing and needed to protect his position by appearing loyal to village norms. Endorsing the banishment allowed him to publicly distance himself from the woman he had loved and assaulted, demonstrating his conformity to the same patriarchal order that had always punished her. Self-preservation had replaced whatever remained of his attachment.

Foreshadowing: Antek's passivity during Hanka's open insults of Jagna after Boryna's injury foreshadows his willingness to sacrifice her when it benefits him.

• antek
• jagna
• banishment
• conformity
• self-preservation

On his deathbed, Boryna recognized that Jagna's continued infidelity had destroyed any trust he had in her, and he wanted the money to benefit his grandchildren rather than a wife who had betrayed him. Hanka had earned his respect by loyally managing the farm in his absence and shielding the family during the crisis. Boryna chose the daughter-in-law who had honored the household over the wife who had shamed it.

Foreshadowing: Boryna's repeated discovery of Jagna and Antek together had already eroded his affection long before his injury.

• boryna
• hanka
• fortune
• inheritance
• jagna

Boryna was enraged when the landowners' court ordered the felling of the peasants' forests, an act that threatened the village's livelihood. He rallied the men of Lipce for a violent reprisal against the landowners, but the clash left him seriously injured. Antek then took revenge for his father's wounds, which prompted Russian troops to intervene and arrest him along with other villagers, escalating the conflict into state violence.

• boryna injury
• forest dispute
• landowners
• russian troops
• antek arrest

Jagna's marriage to Boryna was a transactional arrangement driven by her mother's pressure and Boryna's offer of land, not by genuine affection. Her emotional and physical bond with Antek had been established long before the marriage and did not disappear because of it, even though the affair brought her more punishment than pleasure. Boryna caught them repeatedly, and each discovery deepened the household's hostility toward her.

• jagna
• antek
• affair
• marriage
• betrayal

After Antek and Hanka openly opposed Boryna's marriage to Jagna, a bitter confrontation followed in which they challenged his authority. Boryna used his position as patriarch to banish them from his property, forcing them to move in with Hanka's father and live in poverty. The exile was both a punishment for their defiance and a way to remove obstacles to the marriage he had already decided upon.

• boryna
• antek
• hanka
• exile
• confrontation
• inheritance

Jagna was desperate to free Antek because she still loved him and felt responsible for the chain of events that had led to his imprisonment. The mayor exploited this desperation by offering to help in exchange for sexual favors, turning her attempt at rescue into a harrowing encounter. She narrowly escaped the assault, but the experience deepened her isolation and exposed how every man in power tried to take advantage of her vulnerability.

• jagna
• mayor
• antek
• prison
• exploitation

After being used by Boryna, betrayed and assaulted by Antek, and nearly assaulted by the mayor, Jagna had no desire to submit to another marriage that would once again reduce her to property. Her refusal of the carpenter Mateusz reflects a hard-won rejection of the patriarchal arrangements that had defined and destroyed her life in Lipce. It signals, just before her banishment, that she would rather face the unknown alone than endure another cycle of ownership.

• jagna
• mateusz
• marriage
• refusal
• autonomy

Jagna's stripping, beating, and expulsion represent the village's collective enforcement of patriarchal norms against a woman who refused to remain silent, obedient, or invisible. Her body is made the literal site on which the community punishes its own anxieties about sin, scarcity, and social change. The rain that washes over her afterward visually resets the scene, transforming her public degradation into a quiet declaration that the village, not Jagna, has revealed its own ugliness.

Foreshadowing: The recurring drought that grips Lipce sets up the villagers' need to find a scapegoat for their suffering.

• jagna
• banishment
• symbolism
• patriarchy
• drought
• humiliation