The years of World War I were a time of global change: not only did the political and social order of many countries change, but so did public consciousness and the perception of historical time that had characterized the 19th century. The war largely culminated in a crisis caused by the clash between traditional culture and the emerging culture of modernity. In his fundamental monograph, historian V. Aksyonov demonstrates how this crisis manifested itself in mass sentiment in Russia. The author analyzes patriotic ideas, mass protests, visual images, religious and political symbols, peasant discourse, written urban culture, phobias, rumors, and the emotions associated with them. According to the author, by 1917, an emotional perception of reality began to prevail over a rational and logical one, and the conflict between traditional and modern worldviews prevented the unification of Russian society on the basis of patriotic ideas built around outdated autocratic mythology. During the 1917 Revolution, rumors largely determined the course of political events. Vladislav Aksenov is a specialist in the social history of Russia in the early 20th century and a senior researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.