The article reveals the features of the participation of the peasantry in the processes of national mobilization in Russia in 1 914-1916. The gender-differentiated reactions of peasants to the country's entry into the war and ways of adapting to military everyday life, forms of their participation in the home front efforts are shown. The consequences of changing the gender situation in connection with the mobilization of male householders and the new social role of the soldatki, new gender practices and the attitude of the peasants towards them are analyzed. The peculiarities of peasants' perception of patriotic propaganda, forms of mental and behavioral reactions to information about the state of the front and rear, the role of gender images and language in grassroots discourse are revealed. The role of a peasant woman, on whose shoulders all the hard work of maintaining a family and household fell, in the growing discontent with the government food policy, the main manifestation of which were "women's riots", is shown. It is concluded that the mental reactions, social and gender practices of the peasantry in the conditions of war demonstrated the limits of the political mobilization of Russian society, which has not completed the socio-cultural transformation.