Émile Zola and 'J’Accuse…!'

The struggle to defend reason and human rights amid hysteria and prejudice did not end with the Dreyfus affair. It continues across the world today.

Roh Jeong-tae

The author is a writer and senior fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.

On Jan. 13, 1898, France awoke to a newspaper unlike any it had seen before. L’Aurore devoted its entire front page not to reporting or commentary but to a single column. Its author was Émile Zola, one of the country’s most prominent writers. Under the subheading “Letter to the President of the Republic,” Zola delivered a blunt declaration that would echo through history: “I accuse.”

Portrait of French writer Emile Zola. [WIKIPEDIA]

The roots of the affair stretched back to 1894. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery captain on the French Army General Staff, was accused by military intelligence of spying for Germany. France at the time was gripped by militant nationalism fused with virulent antisemitism. The army quickly concluded that Dreyfus was guilty, and a military court aligned itself with that view. Still haunted by the humiliation of defeat by Prussia in 1871, the institution fixed on an “internal enemy” and proceeded with a trial whose outcome was effectively predetermined. Zola refused to remain silent in the face of that injustice.

“Mr. President,” he wrote, “today I shall speak the truth. I promised to speak it, if the courts that officially handle justice did not do so in full daylight. My duty is to speak.”

The price of telling that truth was severe. In July 1898, a criminal court in Versailles sentenced Zola to one year in prison and fined him 3,000 francs. The French government stripped him of the Legion of Honour. Facing imprisonment, Zola fled into exile in Britain. He returned to France in June 1899 but died under suspicious circumstances just three years later.

Restoring Dreyfus’s own honor proved no easier. Although a retrial was eventually granted, the court ordered his release through a presidential pardon rather than a full acquittal. It was not until July 12, 1906, more than four years after Zola’s death, that Dreyfus was finally exonerated by the courts.

The struggle to defend reason and human rights amid hysteria and prejudice did not end with the Dreyfus affair. It continues across the world today. That is why Zola’s courageous intervention, embodied in “J’Accuse...!” (1898), remains a lasting reference point for writers and citizens alike.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.