With the outbreak of World War I on 28 July 1914, "The Oceanides" languished. Wartime politics being what they were, Sibelius's music was seldom played outside the Nordic countries and the United States: in Germany, there was little demand for the music of an "enemy national", while in Russia, Finns were viewed as being "less than loyal subjects of the Tsar". In any case, many of Sibelius's works had been printed by German publishing houses, a detail that harmed Sibelius's reputation not only in Russia, but also Britain and the United States. According to Tawaststjerna, the war plunged Sibelius into a state of melancholy and creative struggle (the Fifth and Sixth symphonies were in the process of simultaneous gestation at this time). His response was to retreat into near solitude: he abstained from attending and giving concerts and neglected his circle of friends, and he imagined himself "forgotten and ignored, a lonely beacon of light in a deepening winter darkness".