What is patriotism: an emotion or an ideology? If it is a feeling, what is its basis: love or hate, pride or shame? If it is an ideology, is it conservative or revolutionary? Who or what does it support: the government, the nation, the class, the state, or society? In his book, Vladislav Aksyonov, using extensive material from the 19th and early 20th centuries, analyzes the ideological debates and emotional registers of various social groups that unleashed a 'war of patriotisms' in attempts to appropriate the Fatherland. In this war, aggressive patriotic propaganda constructed images of external and internal enemies and subordinated politics to emotion, resulting in abstract categories such as 'national honor and dignity' becoming factors in international relations and pushing countries toward world war. The author demonstrates the contradictory nature of this historical phenomenon, the cyclical nature of patriotic debates, and the crises they lead to. Vladislav Aksenov is a Doctor of Historical Sciences, a senior researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the author of numerous works on the history of Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.