Editing Russo-Japanese War (section)

== Cultural legacy ==

=== Visual arts ===
[[File:Battle of Liaoyang, woodblock print.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Ogata Gessan,"The Battle of Liaoyang", woodblock print, 1904]]

The Russo-Japanese War was covered by dozens of foreign journalists who sent back sketches that were turned into [[lithograph]]s and other reproducible forms. Propaganda images were circulated by both sides, often in the form of postcards and based on insulting racial stereotypes.<ref>{{Cite web |author=Dower, John W. |year=2010 |title=Asia Rising |website=[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] [[Visualizing Cultures (website)|Visualizing Cultures]] |url=http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/asia_rising/ar_essay01.html |access-date=17 June 2015 |archive-date=17 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150617125002/http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/asia_rising/ar_essay01.html |url-status=live }}</ref> These were produced not only by the combatants but by those from European countries who supported one or the other side or had a commercial or colonial stake in the area. War photographs were also popular, appearing in both the press and in book form.<ref name="Dower2008">{{Cite web |author=Dower, John W. |year=2008 |title=Yellow Promise / Yellow Peril |website=MIT Visualizing Cultures |url=http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/yellow_promise_yellow_peril/yp_essay01.html |access-date=17 June 2015 |archive-date=8 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151108071415/http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/yellow_promise_yellow_peril/yp_essay01.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In Russia, the war was covered by anonymous satirical graphic [[Lubok#Russo-Japanese War lubok|luboks]] for sale in markets, recording the war for the domestic audience. Around 300 were made before their creation was banned by the Russian government. Their Japanese equivalents were [[Ukiyo-e|woodblock prints]]. These had been common during the Sino-Japanese war a decade earlier and celebrations of the new conflict tended to repeat the same imagery and situations. But by this time in Japan postcards had become the most common form of communication and they soon replaced prints as a medium for topographical imagery and war reportage. In some ways, however, they were still dependent on the print for their pictorial conventions, not least in issuing the cards in series that assembled into a composite scene or design, either as [[diptychs]], [[triptych]]s or even more ambitious formats. However, captioning swiftly moved from the calligraphic side inscription to a printed title below, and not just in Japanese but in English and other European languages. There was a lively sense that these images served not only as mementoes but also as propaganda statements.{{r|Dower2008}}

War artists were to be found on the Russian side and even figured among the casualties. [[Vasily Vereshchagin]] went down with the ''Petropavlovsk'', Admiral Makarov's flagship, when it was sunk by mines. However, his last work, a picture of a council of war presided over by the admiral, was recovered almost undamaged.<ref>{{cite web |date=11 March 2010 |title=State Historical Museum Opens 'The Year 1812 in the Paintings by Vasily Vereshchagin' |website=artdaily |url=http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=36558 |access-date=17 June 2015 |archive-date=7 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120307114908/http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=36558 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=30 August 1905 |title=War Lasted 18 Months; Biggest Battle Known... Russian Miscalculation |newspaper=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1905/08/30/archives/war-lasted-18-months-biggest-battle-known-engagement-at-mukden.html |access-date=11 June 2018 |archive-date=12 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612230632/https://www.nytimes.com/1905/08/30/archives/war-lasted-18-months-biggest-battle-known-engagement-at-mukden.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Another artist, [[Mykola Samokysh]], first came to notice for his reports during the war and the paintings worked up from his diary sketch-books. Other depictions appeared after the event. The two by the Georgian [[Naïve art|naïve]] painter [[Niko Pirosmani]] from 1906<ref>See reproductions from [[WikiArt]]: [http://www.wikiart.org/en/niko-pirosmani/the-russian-japanese-war-1906#supersized-artistPaintings-216177 1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150617124231/http://www.wikiart.org/en/niko-pirosmani/the-russian-japanese-war-1906#supersized-artistPaintings-216177 |date=17 June 2015 }} and [http://www.wikiart.org/en/niko-pirosmani/russo-japanese-war#supersized-artistPaintings-302745 2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150617143407/http://www.wikiart.org/en/niko-pirosmani/russo-japanese-war#supersized-artistPaintings-302745 |date=17 June 2015 }}.</ref> must have been dependent on newspaper reports since he was not present. Then, in 1914 at the outset of World War I, Yury Repin made an episode during the Battle of Yalu River the subject of a broad heroic canvas.<ref>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Yalu_River_by_Repin.jpg ''Chuliengcheng. In a glorious death eternal life''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150617125738/https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Yalu_River_by_Repin.jpg |date=17 June 2015 }}, oil on canvas by Juri Repin.</ref>

=== Music ===
On either side, there were lyrics lamenting the necessity of fighting in a foreign land, far from home. One of the earliest of several Russian songs still performed today was the waltz "Amur's Waves" (''Amurskie volny''), which evokes the melancholy of standing watch on the motherland far east frontier.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qKajPAQuYo ''Amur's Waves''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200413072557/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qKajPAQuYo&gl=US&hl=en |date=13 April 2020 }} performed by the Red Army Choir under the direction of Gennady Sachenyuk (in Russian with English subtext).</ref>

Two others grew out of incidents during the war. "[[On the Hills of Manchuria]]" (''Na sopkah Manchzhurii''; 1906)<ref>{{cite web |title=Ilya Shatrov: On the Hills of Manchuria, Waltz |website=Editions Orphée |url=https://www.editionsorphee.com/repertoire/shatrov.html |access-date=4 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307102739/http://www.editionsorphee.com/repertoire/shatrov.html |archive-date=7 March 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> is another waltz composed by [[Ilya Shatrov]], a decorated military musician whose regiment suffered badly in the Battle of Mukden. Originally only the music was published, and the words by [[Skitalets|Stepan Petrov]] were added later.

The second song, "Variag", commemorates the [[Battle of Chemulpo Bay]] in which [[Russian cruiser Varyag (1899)|that cruiser]] and the gunboat ''Korietz'' steamed out to confront an encircling Japanese squadron rather than surrender. That act of heroism was first celebrated in a German song by Rudolf Greintz in 1907, which was quickly translated into Russian and sung to a martial accompaniment.<ref>German text in {{cite web |title=Rudolf Greins. 'Auf Deck, Kameraden, All Auf Deck!' |trans-title=Rudolf Greintz. 'On Deck, Comrades, All on Deck!' |website=РУКОНТ |url=https://rucont.ru/efd/11224 |access-date=17 January 2018 |archive-date=17 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180117132158/https://rucont.ru/efd/11224 |url-status=live }} See also a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I60IrRMntWk multimedia enactment] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160102024802/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I60IrRMntWk |date=2 January 2016 }} of the song on YouTube (in Russian).</ref> These lyrics mourned the fallen lying in their graves and threatened revenge.<ref>See some translations at [https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=155598#3661604 Mudcat Café] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806225332/https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=155598#3661604 |date=6 August 2020 }}, and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_720020&feature=iv&src_vid=fWDgs34wilk&v=6ZsK0pSbSIo ''On The Hills of Manchuria''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309025345/https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_720020&feature=iv&src_vid=fWDgs34wilk&v=6ZsK0pSbSIo |date=9 March 2021 }} performed by Maxim Troshin (in Russian).</ref>

[[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]] also reacted to the war by composing the satirical opera ''[[The Golden Cockerel]]'', completed in 1907. Although it was ostensibly based on a verse fairy tale by [[Alexander Pushkin]] written in 1834, the authorities quickly realised its true target and immediately banned it from performance. The opera was premiered in 1909, after Rimsky-Korsakov's death, and even then with modifications required by the censors.

=== Poetry ===
Some Japanese poetry dealing with the war has remained popular more than a century later. General [[Nogi Maresuke]]'s "Outside the Goldland Fortress" was learned by generations of schoolchildren and valued for its bleak stoicism.<ref>{{cite web | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211028/I60IrRMntWk| archive-date=2021-10-28|title=General Maresuke Nogi (1849–1912) |website=War Poets Association |url=http://www.warpoets.org/poets/general-maresuke-nogi-1849-1912 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> The army surgeon [[Mori Ōgai]] kept a verse diary which tackled such themes as racism, strategic mistakes, and the ambiguities of victory, which has gained appreciation with historical hindsight.<ref>Collected works in {{harvnb|Wells|Wilson|1999|}}, reviewed by Tim Wright in [http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue4/tims_review.html Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150329090341/http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue4/tims_review.html |date=29 March 2015 }} n. 4 September 2000.</ref> In the present day there is also a growing appreciation of [[Yosano Akiko]]'s parting poem to her brother as he left for the war, which includes the critical lines:

{{poemquote|Never let them kill you, brother!
His Imperial Majesty would not come out to fight&nbsp;...
How could He possibly make them believe
that it is honourable to die?<ref>See {{cite web |author=Janine Beichman |date=11 December 2006 |title=Thou Shalt Not Die: Yosano Akiko and the Russo-Japanese War |website=Asiatic Society of Japan |url=http://www.asjapan.org/web.php/lectures/2006/12 |access-date=2 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150609035209/http://www.asjapan.org/web.php/lectures/2006/12 |archive-date=9 June 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}

Even the [[Emperor Meiji]] himself entered the poetic lists, writing in answer to all the lamentations about death in a foreign land that the patriotic soul returns to the homeland.<ref>{{cite book |author=Takashi Fujitani |year=1996 |title=Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan |publisher=University of California Press |page=126 |isbn=9780520202375 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pHWE7SWePgIC&q=russo+japanese+war++%22poem%22&pg=PA126 |access-date=20 November 2020 |archive-date=29 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210829192908/https://books.google.com/books?id=pHWE7SWePgIC&q=russo+japanese+war++%22poem%22&pg=PA126 |url-status=live }}</ref>

European treatments were similarly varied. Jane H. Oakley attempted an epic treatment of the conflict in 86 cantos.<ref>{{cite book |first=Jane H. |last=Oakley |year=1905 |title=A Russo-Japanese War Poem |location=Brighton |publisher=The Standard Press |url=https://archive.org/details/arussojapanesew00oaklgoog }}</ref> The French poet [[Blaise Cendrars]] was later to represent himself as on a Russian train on its way to Manchuria at the time in his ''[[La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France]]'' (1913) and energetically evoked the results of the war along the way:

{{poemquote|I saw the silent trains the black trains returning from the Far East and passing like phantoms&nbsp;...
At Talga 100,000 wounded were dying for lack of care
I visited the hospitals of Krasnoyarsk
And at Khilok we encountered a long convoy of soldiers who had lost their minds
In the pesthouses I saw gaping gashes wounds bleeding full blast
And amputated limbs danced about or soared through the raucous air<ref>{{cite book |year=1966 |editor=Walter Albert |title=Selected Writings of Blaise Cendrars |publisher=New Directions |isbn=978-081121888-7 |page=93 }}</ref>}}

Much later, the Scottish poet [[Douglas Dunn]] devoted an [[epistolary poem]] in verse to the naval war in ''The Donkey's Ears: Politovsky's Letters Home'' (2000). This follows the voyage of the Russian Imperial Navy flagship ''Kniaz'' to its sinking at the Battle of Tsushima.<ref>See the account by {{cite journal |author=David Wheatley |title=Dialect with Army and Navy |journal=The London Review of Books |volume=23 |issue=12 |date=21 June 2001 |pages=40–41 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n12/david-wheatley/dialect-with-army-and-navy |access-date=2 June 2015 |archive-date=12 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150912011555/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n12/david-wheatley/dialect-with-army-and-navy |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Fiction ===
Fictional coverage of the war in English began even before it was over. An early example was [[Allen Upward]]'s ''The International Spy''. Set in both Russia and Japan, it ends with the Dogger Bank incident involving the Baltic Fleet.<ref>{{cite book |last=Upward |first=Allen |year=1904 |title=The International Spy – Being the secret history of the Russo-Japanese War |publisher=M.A. Donohue & Co |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30482 |access-date=16 January 2018 |archive-date=16 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116081410/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30482 |url-status=live }}</ref> The political thinking displayed there is typical of the time. There is great admiration for the Japanese, who were British allies. Russia is in turmoil, but the main impetus towards war is not imperialism as such but commercial forces. "Every student of modern history has remarked the fact that all recent wars have been promoted by great combinations of capitalists. The causes which formerly led to war between nation and nation have ceased to operate" (p.&nbsp;40). The true villain plotting in the background, however, is the German Emperor, seeking to destabilise the European balance of power in his country's favour. Towards the end of the novel, the narrator steals a German submarine and successfully foils a plot to involve the British in the war. The submarine motif reappeared in [[George Griffith]]'s science fiction novel, ''The Stolen Submarine'' (1904), although in this case it is a French super-submarine which its developer sells to the Russians for use against the Japanese in another tale of international intrigue.<ref>E.F. and R. Bleiler (1990), ''Science Fiction: The Early Years'', Kent State University, [https://books.google.com/books?id=KEZxhkG5eikC&dq=%22The+stolen+submarine%22+griffiths&pg=PA308 p. 308] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819134741/https://books.google.com/books?id=KEZxhkG5eikC&lpg=PA955&ots=M2IiJYwF8t&dq=%22The%20stolen%20submarine%22%20griffiths&pg=PA308#v=onepage&q=%22The%20stolen%20submarine%22%20griffiths&f=false |date=19 August 2020 }}</ref>

Though most English-language fiction of the period took the Japanese side, the Rev. W. W. Walker's Canadian novella, ''Alter Ego'', is an exception. It features a Canadian volunteer in the Russian army who, on his return, agrees to talk about his experiences to an isolated upcountry community and relates his part in the Battle of Mukden.<ref>{{cite book |author=Walker, W.W. |year=1907 |title=Alter Ego: a Tale |location=Toronto |publisher=William Briggs |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37731 |access-date=16 January 2018 |archive-date=16 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116081411/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37731 |url-status=live }}</ref> Though this incident only occupies two of the book's six chapters, it is used to illustrate the main message there, that war is "anti-Christian and barbarous, except in a defensive sense" (Ch. 3).

[[File:MIKASAPAINTING.jpg|thumb|Painting of Admiral [[Heihachirō Tōgō]] on the bridge of the {{ship|Japanese battleship|Mikasa}}, before the [[Battle of Tsushima]] in 1905]]
Various aspects of the war were also common in contemporary children's fiction. Categorised as [[Boys' Own]] adventure stories, they offer few insights into the conflict, being generally based on news articles and sharing without any reflection in the contemporary culture of imperialism.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Russo-Japanese War and Boys Own Adventure Stories |website=The Russo-Japanese War Research Society |url=http://russojapanesewar.com/boys-own.html |access-date=16 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170621023400/http://russojapanesewar.com/boys-own.html |archive-date=21 June 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Among these, [[Herbert Strang]] was responsible for two novels: ''Kobo'' told from the Japanese side,<ref>{{cite book |last=Strang |first=Herbert |year=1905 |title=Kobo |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44316?msg=welcome_stranger |access-date=16 January 2018 |archive-date=16 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116081348/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44316?msg=welcome_stranger |url-status=live }}</ref> and ''Brown of Moukden'' viewed from the Russian side.<ref>{{cite book |last=Strang |first=Herbert |year=1906 |title=Brown of Moukden |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44256 |access-date=16 January 2018 |archive-date=1 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171001214721/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44256 |url-status=live }}</ref> Three more were written by the prolific American author, [[Edward Stratemeyer]]: ''Under the Mikado's Flag'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Stratemeyer |first=Edward |year=1904 |title=Under the Mikado's Flag, or Young Soldiers of Fortune |series=Soldiers of fortune series |location=Boston |publisher=Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hn3lyv;view=1up;seq=13 |access-date=16 January 2018 |archive-date=1 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101070127/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hn3lyv;view=1up;seq=13 |url-status=live }}</ref> ''At the Fall of Port Arthur'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Stratemeyer |first=Edward |year=1905 |title=At the Fall of Port Arthur, or a young American in the Japanese navy |location=Boston |publisher=Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33559 |access-date=16 January 2018 |archive-date=16 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116081303/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33559 |url-status=live }}</ref> and ''Under Togo for Japan, or Three Young Americans on Land and Sea'' (1906). Two other English-language stories begin with the action at Port Arthur and follow the events thereafter: ''A Soldier of Japan: a tale of the Russo-Japanese War'' by Captain [[Frederick Sadleir Brereton]], and ''The North Pacific''<ref>{{cite book |last=Allen |first=Willis B. |year=1905 |title=The North Pacific – A Story of the Russo-Japanese War |location=New York City |publisher=E.P. Dutton & Co |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45413 |access-date=16 January 2018 |archive-date=10 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180110063407/https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45413 |url-status=live }}</ref> by Willis Boyd Allen (1855–1938). Two more also involve young men fighting in the Japanese navy: Americans in ''For the Mikado''<ref>{{cite book |last=Munroe |first=Kirk |year=1905 |title=For the Mikado or a Japanese Middy in Action |publisher=Harper & brothers |url=https://archive.org/details/formikadoorajap00munrgoog }}</ref> by [[Kirk Munroe]], and a temporarily disgraced English officer in ''Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun''<ref>{{cite book |last=Collingwood |first=Harry |year=1916 |title=Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun – A Story of the Russo-Japanese War |location=New York City |publisher=Silver Scroll |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27910 |access-date=16 January 2018 |archive-date=16 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116081405/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27910 |url-status=live }}</ref> by Harry Collingwood, the pen-name of William Joseph Cosens Lancaster (1851–1922), whose speciality was [[nautical fiction|naval fiction]].

Another literary genre affected by the outcome of the war was [[invasion literature]], either fuelled by racialist fears or generated by the international power struggle. [[Shunrō Oshikawa]]'s novel ''The Submarine Battleship'' (''Kaitei Gunkan'') was published in 1900 before the actual fighting began but shared the imperial tensions that produced it. It is the story of an armoured ram-armed submarine involved in a Russo-Japanese conflict.<ref>Derek Linney, ''Invasion-Literature, 1871–1914'', [http://www.theriddleofthesands.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Invasion-Literature-1871-1914-1.pdf p. 95] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180120065706/http://www.theriddleofthesands.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Invasion-Literature-1871-1914-1.pdf |date=20 January 2018 }}</ref> Three other novels appeared in 1908 and are thought of as significant now because of their prophetic dimension. American author Arthur Wellesley Kipling (1885–1947) prefaced his ''The New Dominion – A Tale of Tomorrow's Wars'' with a note counselling future vigilance. The scenario there is an attack by German and Japanese allies which the US and British navies victoriously fend off.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/newdominionatal00kiplgoog|title=The New Dominion: A Tale of To-morrow's Wars / Arthur W. Kipling|date=29 April 1908|publisher=Francis Griffiths|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> In Germany itself an air attack on the American fleet is described by Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff (1871–1935), writing under the name Parabellum, in his novel ''Banzai!''. Published in Berlin in 1908, it was translated into English the following year.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19498/19498-h/19498-h.htm|title=The Project Gutenberg eBook of Banzai!, by Parabellum.|website=www.gutenberg.org|access-date=19 January 2018|archive-date=4 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180604180655/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19498/19498-h/19498-h.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> An Australian author using the pseudonym Charles H. Kirmess first serialised his ''The Commonwealth Crisis'' and then revised it for book publication as ''The Australian Crisis'' in 1909. It is set in 1912 and told from the standpoint of 1922, following a military invasion of Australia's Northern Territory and colonisation by Japanese settlers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.australianculture.org/the-australian-crisis/|title=The Australian Crisis [novel by C. H. Kirmess, 1909]|date=3 August 2012|website=The Institute of Australian Culture|access-date=29 April 2020|archive-date=29 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200429184402/http://www.australianculture.org/the-australian-crisis/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Most Russian fictional accounts of the war had a documentary element. [[Alexey Novikov-Priboy]] served in the Baltic Fleet and wrote about the conflict on his return, but his early work was suppressed. It was not until the changed political climate under Soviet rule that he began writing his historical epic ''Tsushima'', based on his own experiences on board the battleship {{ship|Russian battleship|Oryol||2}} as well as on testimonies of fellow sailors and government archives. The first part was published in 1932, the second in 1935, and the whole novel was later awarded the [[State Stalin Prize|Stalin Prize]]. It describes the heroism of Russian sailors and certain officers whose defeat, in accordance with the new Soviet thinking, was due to the criminal negligence of the Imperial Naval command. A German novel by [[Frank Thiess]], originally published as ''Tsushima'' in 1936 (and later translated as ''The Voyage of Forgotten Men''), covered the same journey round the world to defeat.

Later there appeared a first-hand account of the siege of Port Arthur by Alexander Stepanov (1892–1965). He had been present there as the 12-year-old son of a battery commander and his novel, ''Port Arthur: a historical narrative'' (1944), is based on his own diaries and his father's notes. The work is considered one of the best historical novels of the Soviet period.<ref>{{cite book |first=Aleksandr N. |last=Stepanov |year=1947 |translator=J. Fineberg |title=Port Arthur: a historical narrative |publisher=[[Foreign Languages Publishing House (North Korea)|Foreign Languages Publishing House]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3QMDAAAAMAAJ |access-date=20 September 2020 |archive-date=30 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030054920/https://books.google.com/books?id=3QMDAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> A later novel in which the war appears is [[Valentin Pikul]]'s ''The Three Ages of Okini-San'' (1981). Centred on the life of Vladimir Kokovtsov, who rose through the ranks to admiral of the Russian fleet, it covers the period from the Russo-Japanese War through to the [[February Revolution|February]] and [[October Revolution]]s. A much later Russian genre novel uses the period of the war as background. This is [[Boris Akunin]]'s ''[[The Diamond Chariot]]'' (2003), in the first part of which the detective [[Erast Fandorin]] is charged with protecting the Trans-Siberian Railway from Japanese sabotage.

The main historical novel dealing with the war from the Japanese side is [[Shiba Ryōtarō]]'s ''[[Saka no Ue no Kumo|Clouds Above the Hill]]'', published serially in several volumes between 1968 and 1972, and translated in English in 2013. The closely researched story spans the decade from the Sino-Japanese War to the Russo-Japanese War and went on to become the nation's favourite book.<ref name="MP">{{cite news |author=Hiroaki Sato |title=Multiple perspectives in novel on the Russo-Japanese War |newspaper=The Japan Times |url=http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2013/07/27/books/book-reviews/multiple-perspectives-in-novel-on-the-russo-japanese-war/#.VWzWUVJS8SV |access-date=27 July 2013 |archive-date=17 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117113023/http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2013/07/27/books/book-reviews/multiple-perspectives-in-novel-on-the-russo-japanese-war/#.VWzWUVJS8SV |url-status=live}}</ref>