Premonition of Civil War: Emotions during The Kornilov Affair

Using the instruments of the history of emotions (primarily William Reddy’s concept of emotives), the author explores the significance of political emotions broadcast by various political actors during the days of the Kornilov mutiny. The author uses different periodicals, appeals of main political actors and diaries as main sources. Emotive of fear influenced the course of crisis: people of different political views thought that this crisis would develop into a civil war. All political forces utilized the fear of civil war for their own purposes. The exceptions were some radical socialists, primarily Vladimir Lenin, as well as representatives of military committees. It was shown that fear of civil war was one of the factors that contributed to the escalation of violence. Destruction (political and even physical) of the adversary was described as the means for exiting the crisis. Influence of these cultural factor reduced the possibility of political compromises, contributed to the processes of alienation, dehumanization of the enemy. The widespread fear of a civil war breaking out that various political actors were using did not serve as a sufficient condition for preventing it but it tinted the language of the civil war with a specific emotional burden. Particular emotional atmosphere of the civil war was formed before the breaking out of the full- global conflict