The film emphasized that Saakadze, initially an obscure squire, was a victim of machinations at the hands of the wealthy feudal lords who would sacrifice everything, including their motherland, for their own benefit. It intentionally avoided any mention of Saakadze's own adventures and illustrated him as a popular leader against the external aggressors. In the atmosphere of suspicion and spy mania in the Soviet Union during these years, the movie also served to current propaganda by emphasizing that the treason threatening to the popular leader, and hence to the country, was to be punished cruelly. Ironically, Giorgi Saakadze was also the name of the Wehrmacht's 797th Battalion, one of Georgian battalions formed by the Germans to fight the Soviet Union.