Wikipedia's first sentence called it “name”. Today it says “former soviet refusenik”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the October 6, 2023 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in October 6, 2023
Iosif Ziselovich Begun , sometimes spelled Yosef (born July 9, 1932, in Moscow , Soviet Union ; Russian: Иосиф Зиселевич Бегун , ), whose last name is pronounced "bee-goon" and in Russian literally means "runner," is a former Soviet refusenik , prisoner of conscience , human rights activist , author and translator.1 Over the course of 17 years, Begun was imprisoned three times and spent over eight years in prisons and labor camps as a political prisoner . He was pardoned and freed in 1987 after political pressure from Jewish political organizations and the U.S. " Soviet Union A Day in the Depths of the Gulag ." Time Magazine .
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1146045298.
The opening as it stood in 2015
Iosif Ziselovich Begun , sometimes spelled Yosef (born July 9, 1932 in Moscow , Russia ) (Russian: Иосиф Зиселевич Бегун , ), last is name pronounced "bee-goon" and in Russian literally means "runner," is a former Soviet refusenik , prisoner of conscience , human rights activist , author and translator. Over the course of 17 years, Begun was imprisoned three times and spent over eight years in prisons and labor camps as a political prisoner . He was pardoned and freed in 1987 after political pressure from Jewish political organizations and the US Government . A Day in the Depths of the Gulag , Time Magazine , March 09, 1987.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 643854887.
The opening as it stood in 2020
Iosif Ziselovich Begun , sometimes spelled Yosef (born July 9, 1932 in Moscow , Soviet Union ; Russian: Иосиф Зиселевич Бегун , ), whose last name is pronounced "bee-goon" and in Russian literally means "runner," is a former Soviet refusenik , prisoner of conscience , human rights activist , author and translator. Over the course of 17 years, Begun was imprisoned three times and spent over eight years in prisons and labor camps as a political prisoner . He was pardoned and freed in 1987 after political pressure from Jewish political organizations and the U.S. " Soviet Union A Day in the Depths of the Gulag ." Time Magazine .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 937556615.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Refusenik advocate and educator Iosif Ziselovich Begun , sometimes spelled Yosef (born 9 July 1932, Russian : Иосиф Зиселевич Бегун , Hebrew : יוסף ביגון ) is a former Soviet refusenik , prisoner of conscience , human rights activist , author and translator. Over the course of 17 years, Begun was imprisoned three times and spent over eight years in prisons and labor camps as a political prisoner . He was pardoned and freed in 1987 after political pressure from Jewish political organizations and the U.S. " Soviet Union A Day in the Depths of the Gulag ." Time Magazine .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1293343234. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “name”. Today it says “former soviet refusenik”. Read the current article and compare.
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2015, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
name
Now
former soviet refusenik
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
