The article is devoted to the students' and teachers' state in the Petrograd University during the First World War. This period became a difficult trial for the university corporation, which was compelled to respond the internal political changes relating to wartime. The central goal of the article was the reconstruction of the collective portrait of an academic corporation of the era of the First World War. The prosopographical surveys carried out clearly show that the capital's university was alien to the struggle with the so-called German dominance that engulfed Russian society. At the same time, considering the forms of academic patriotism, the authors show that the capital's university professors were not always ready to sacrifice their corporate interests and values for the overall victory.