The 1921 Songs Before Dawn: Yeroshenko, Who Wrote Fairy Tales in Japanese

In July 1921, the Tokyo publisher Sobunkaku (厢文閣) brought out a book titled Songs Before Dawn (夜明け前の歌). Its subtitle was “Collected Works of Eroshienko,” and it was edited by the playwright Ujaku Akita (秋田雨雀). According to the National Diet Library’s catalog, it runs 316 pages and contains 14 fairy tales and stories, including “The Narrow Cage,” “The Sorrow of the Fish,” “The Heart of the Eagle,” and “The Ship of Happiness.”

The author was the blind poet Vasyl Yeroshenko (Василь Єрошенко, 1890–1952). He was in Japan from 1914 to 1921, and wrote in both Japanese and Esperanto. What follows draws on the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU) from the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine (ЄСУ) from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the National Diet Library’s catalog, the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Cultural Heritage Online, and the corporate history of Shinjuku Nakamuraya (新宿中村屋), as of September 2026. Where sources disagree, both are given.

Where Was He Born?

According to IEU, he lost his sight at age 4. ЄСУ states that he studied from 1899 to 1908 at a school run by a Moscow society for the protection and education of the blind, played violin in a blind musicians’ orchestra, and in the summer of 1912 studied at a Royal school for the blind outside London. It is Nakamuraya’s corporate history that explains he encountered Esperanto while at school.

Sources Differ on Where He Was Born

His birth date and birthplace are given slightly differently by each source.

Source	Birth date	How the birthplace is given
ЄСУ (published 2009)	December 31, 1889 (Old Style, per the calendar used in the Russian Empire) = January 12, 1890	The village of Obukhovka, Starыi Oskol uyezd, Kursk Governorate — today a village in Belgorod Oblast, Russian Federation
IEU (reprint of the 1993 print edition)	January 13, 1890	Obukhovka, Belgorod uyezd, Kursk Governorate
Shinjuku Nakamuraya’s corporate history	1890	“Born in Ukraine”

The two encyclopedias agree that the village where he was born is now in Belgorod Oblast, Russian Federation. The name of the uyezd differs between ЄСУ and IEU, and this article does not settle which is correct. Some Japanese sources describe him as “born in Ukraine,” which does not match what the encyclopedias say. Both encyclopedias give his date of death as December 23, 1952, in the village where he was born.

Even so, Ukrainian encyclopedias give him an entry. The Ukrainian connections ЄСУ cites are a Ukrainian-language translation of his collected works, The Flower of Justice (Квітка справедливості, Kyiv, 1969), a street named after him in Lviv, the charitable foundation “Espero,” established in Kyiv in 2007, and a 1991 Ukrainian documentary film. IEU’s entry “Japan” lists him among figures connecting Ukraine and Japan, noting that he taught in Tokyo (1914–1921) and wrote poems, stories, fairy tales, and plays in Japanese.

Seven Years in Japan

His arrival in and expulsion from Japan, and his relationship with the playwright Ujaku Akita, are touched on in our article on Ukraine-Japan relations. Here we add only what concerns his written work.

According to Nakamuraya’s corporate history, Akita first met Yeroshenko in early spring 1915, and in September of that year interpreted a lecture Yeroshenko gave in Esperanto at Tokyo Imperial University. On the way back, Kokko Soma, Nakamuraya’s founder, invited the group into her shop, and from then on she looked after Yeroshenko’s daily life. He traveled to Southeast and South Asia in 1916 and returned to Japan in 1919. ЄСУ summarizes that from 1914 to 1921 he studied and taught in Japan and took part in the Esperanto movement.

Three Books Published in Japanese

Three Japanese-language books appeared within a few years of the end of his stay. Here the National Diet Library’s catalog and ЄСУ’s account are set side by side.

Title	Published	Publisher	Editor	Pages
Songs Before Dawn (夜明け前の歌, Collected Works of Eroshienko)	July 1921 (Taishō 10)	Sobunkaku	Ujaku Akita	316
The Last Sigh (最後の溢息)	1921 (Taishō 10)	Sobunkaku	Ujaku Akita	327
For Humanity (人類の為めに, Collected Works No. 3)	October 1924 (Taishō 13)	Tokyo Kankōsha	ЄСУ gives “Fukuoka Seiichi”	—

The table of contents for Songs Before Dawn, as held in the National Diet Library Digital Collections, lists the following 14 pieces. The numbers are the starting pages given in the table of contents.

• The Narrow Cage (1), The Sorrow of the Fish (35), The Scholar’s Head (55), By the Marsh (69), A Single Pear Tree (81)
• The Heart of the Eagle (105), The Pine’s Child (125), A Spring Night’s Dream (145), The Changeling Cat (179)
• The Man-God of Jupiter (195), The Squandering of Grace (209), The Martyrdom of an Unbeliever (231), The Ship of Happiness (249), Death of a Canary (289)

ЄСУ states that the three volumes contained symbolic and satirical fairy tales, along with the mystery play The Pink Cloud (桃色の雲), and explains that the works read more like parables and are largely written in rhythmic language. As influences, it cites Russian symbolism, Tolstoy, Zamenhof (who devised Esperanto), Kropotkin’s thought, the folk culture of southern Russia, and Eastern literature.

The Old Spelling “Eroshienko,” the Current Spelling “Yeroshenko”

In the National Diet Library’s catalog, the two 1921 books give the author’s name as “Washirii Eroshienko,” and the subtitle is likewise “Collected Works of Eroshienko.” Postwar books mostly spell it “Yeroshenko,” and this article follows that convention. The given name “Washirii” is a rendering close to the Russian pronunciation; in Ukrainian it is read as Vasyl.

What Does “Wrote in Japanese” Mean?

IEU states that his works were written in Japanese and Esperanto, and that once he had learned Japanese he began publishing poems, stories, and plays in Japanese newspapers and magazines. ЄСУ notes that all three books appeared in Japanese in Tokyo, and that the first two were edited by Ujaku Akita. Neither encyclopedia states how, given his blindness, he actually produced a Japanese manuscript — whether he wrote it himself, dictated it for someone else to transcribe, or how much editing it underwent.

Two 1920 Portraits

Yeroshenko also sat as the model for two works of modern Japanese Western-style painting. According to the description from the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the painter Goro Tsuruta saw him standing alone at Mejiro Station and asked him to model; starting September 6, 1920, the two painters worked side by side in the studio of Tsuruta’s friend Tsune Nakamura. They are said to have painted for a full afternoon each day over 8 days.

Work	Painter	Held by	Record
Portrait of Mr. Yeroshenko (エロシェンコ氏の像, 1920, oil)	Tsune Nakamura	National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo	Exhibited at the 2nd Imperial Art Exhibition (Teiten) in 1920. Designated an Important Cultural Property on June 11, 1977
The Blind Yeroshenko (盲目のエロシェンコ, 1920)	Goro Tsuruta	Nakamuraya (per Nakamuraya’s corporate history)	Also exhibited at the same 2nd Teiten (per Nakamuraya’s corporate history)

The Agency for Cultural Affairs’ description states that Nakamura’s painting was also exhibited, two years later, at a Japan-France art exchange exhibition in Paris, where it was well received. According to Nakamuraya’s corporate history, meeting Yeroshenko led the shop to change its staff uniform to the rubashka, the Russian shirt he favored wearing, and to begin selling borscht in 1927.

1921: Leaving Japan

Yeroshenko was expelled from Japan in 1921. Nakamuraya’s corporate history explains that, because of his contact with people in the socialist movement, he came under suspicion of being a Bolshevik — something Japan at the time was on guard against.

Translation Into Chinese

According to ЄСУ, after leaving Japan he taught Esperanto and Russian at Peking University from 1922 to 1923. His works were also translated into Chinese; ЄСУ states that translations by Lu Xun were published in Shanghai as A Collection of Yeroshenko’s Fairy Tales (1922 onward) and The Pink Cloud (1922 onward). A record of the Esperanto lectures he gave at Peking University was also published as a book in 1924. Nakamuraya’s corporate history states that he went to Beijing at Lu Xun’s invitation.

After that, according to ЄСУ, he traveled around Europe from 1923 to 1924, and from 1924 to 1928 served as an instructor and interpreter for the Japanese-language group at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow.

His Life After Returning to the USSR: The Two Encyclopedias Disagree

His biography from the late 1920s onward differs considerably between the two encyclopedias.

ЄСУ (2009) states that he worked on the central board of the All-Russian Society of the Blind in 1928–1929, taught at a vocational school for the blind in Nizhny Novgorod in 1930–1932, and from 1934 to 1945 founded and ran Turkmenistan’s first boarding institution for blind children. It also states that he proposed a Turkmen Braille system, recognized as the best proposal in 1934. His biography continues with him teaching blind students near Moscow and in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

IEU (1993 print edition) states that he was arrested in 1929, spent 5 years in a camp in Chukotka and 11 years in Turkmenistan, was released in 1945, and was then detained again after refusing interpreting work for the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs), not getting out until 1951.

This article has not been able to verify which of these two accounts is correct.

In Postwar Japan

In postwar Japan, a 3-volume Complete Works of Yeroshenko (エロシェンコ全集, Misuzu Shobo, 1959; volume 3 a biography), edited by Ichiro Takasugi, was published. According to the National Diet Library’s catalog, the same publisher brought out, in 1974, a 2-volume Collected Works of Yeroshenko (エロシェンコ作品集; volume 1, The Pink Cloud; volume 2, Record of Expulsion From Japan), also edited and translated by Takasugi. The 1921 Songs Before Dawn is available in the National Diet Library Digital Collections.