Editing Russo-Japanese War (section)

=== 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>