Émile Zola's 1898 open letter J'accuse defended Alfred Dreyfus, a French army officer wrongfully imprisoned in the Dreyfus affair. The 2005 opening stated "J'accuse accused the French government of anti-Semitism and of wrongfully placing Alfred Dreyfus in jail." Today's opening calls Dreyfus "falsely accused and convicted" without naming anti-Semitism, though the word survives twice elsewhere in the article. A reader arriving at the opening today learns Zola helped exonerate a wrongly convicted officer, and not that his letter named the charge against France's government as anti-Semitism.
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Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01. “antisemitism” appeared 2 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 2.
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The opening as it read in 2005
Émile Zola ( April 2 , 1840 – September 29 , 1902 ) was an influential French novelist of Jewish origin, the most important example of the literary school of naturalism , and a major figure in the political liberalization of France . Born in Paris, France , the son of an Italian engineer, Émile Zola spent his childhood in Aix-en-Provence and was educated at the Collège Bourbon. At age 18 he returned to Paris where he studied at the Lycée Saint-Louis. After working at several low-level clerical jobs, he began to write a literary column for a newspaper. Controversial from the beginning, he did not hide his disdain for Napoleon III , who used the Second Republic as a vehicle to become Emperor. More than half of Zola's novels were part of a set of 20 collectively known as Les Rougon-Macquart . Set in France's Second Empire , it traces the hereditary influence of violence, alcoholism , and prostitution in two branches of a family, the respectable Rougons and the disreputable Macquarts, for five generations. As he described his plans for the series, "I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world." Zola and the painter Paul Cezanne were friends from childhood and in youth, but broke in later life over Zola's fictionalized depiction of Cezanne and the bohemian life of painters in his novel L'Oeuvre ( The Masterpiece, 1886 ). He risked his career and even his life on January 13 , 1898 , when his J'accuse ( original French English translation ) was published on the front page of the Paris daily, L'Aurore . The paper was run by Ernest Vaughan and Georges Clemenceau , who decided that the controversial story would be in the form of an open letter to the President, Félix Faure . J'accuse accused the French government of anti-Semitism and of wrongfully placing Alfred Dreyfus in jail. Zola was brought to trial for libel for publishing J'Accuse on February 7 , 1898 and was convicted on February 23 . Zola declared that the conviction and transportation to Devil's Island of the Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus came after a false accusation of espionage and was a miscarriage of justice. The case, known as the Dreyfus affair , had divided France deeply between the reactionary army and church and the more liberal commercial society. The ramifications continued for years, so much so that on the 100th anniversary of Émile Zola's article, France's Roman Catholic daily paper, "La Croix", apologized for its anti-Semitic editorials during the Dreyfus affair. Portrait by Edouard Manet , 1868. Zola was a leading light of France and his letter formed a major turning-point in the Dreyfus affair, causing the captain's case to be reopened, whereupon he was acquitted. In the course of events, Zola was convicted of libel, sentenced, and removed from the Legion of Honor . Rather than go to jail, he fled to England . Soon he was allowed to return in time to see the government fall. Dreyfus was convicted again, but was ultimately freed, in large part due to the moral force of Zola's arguments. Zola said "The truth is on the march, and nothing shall stop it." In 1906, Dreyfus was completely exonerated by the Supreme Court. Zola died in Paris on September 29 , 1902 of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a stopped chimney. His enemies were blamed, but nothing was proved. He was initially buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris , but on June 4 , 1908 , almost six years after his death, his remains were moved to the Panthéon . On January of 1998 President Jacques Chirac held a memorial to honor the centenary of J'Accuse.1
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The opening as it stood in 2010 25 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Émile François Zola ( ; 2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was an influential French writer , the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism .He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus , which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'Accuse .
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The opening as it stood in 2015
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola ( / ˈ z oʊ l ə / ; ; 2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French writer, the most well-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism . He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus , which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'accuse . Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902.Given Émile Zola's reputation as an agnostic and a radical thinker, he has often been avoided by scholars with a religious background.
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The opening as it stood in 2020 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
French writer Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola ( / ˈ z oʊ l ə / , also US : / z oʊ ˈ l ɑː / , ; 2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French novelist, playwright, journalist, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism , and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism . He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus , which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'Accuse…! Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.).
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The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023
French journalist, playwright and poet (1840–1902) Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola ( / ˈ z oʊ l ə / , also US : / z oʊ ˈ l ɑː / , ; 2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism , and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism . He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus , which is encapsulated in his renowned newspaper opinion headlined J'Accuse…! Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1176383359.
The opening as it stood in 2025
French novelist, journalist, playwright, and poet (1840–1902) Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola ( / ˈ z oʊ l ə / , also US : / z oʊ ˈ l ɑː / ; French: [emil zɔla] ; 2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism , and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism . He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus , which is encapsulated in his renowned newspaper opinion headlined J'Accuse...! Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prizes in Literature in 1901 and 1902. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.).
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Today
“antisemitism” appeared 2 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 2. Read the current article and compare.
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antisemitism
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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 between 2005 and 2020.
Then
influential french novelist of jewish origin
Now
french novelist
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