oupacademic:A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1898, Émile Zola’s open letter, ‘J'

oupacademic:A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1898, Émile Zola’s open letter, ‘J'accuse’ was published on the front page of the newspaper L’Aurore, exposing the Dreyfus affair.“The affair revolved around the 1894 accusation and imprisonment of a Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus, for spying and treason. There were many inconsistencies in the initial trial and subsequent re-trial. The writer Emile Zola intervened in 1898 when the newspaper L’Aurore published his open letter, now known as “J’accuse,” denouncing the French Army for a cover-up and the French judicial system for irresponsibility. The following day, the paper printed a “Manifesto of the Intellectuals” in which the group of writers and artists demanded the reopening of the case. The signed petition, in which individuals also claimed a collective identity as intellectuals, helped establish the role of the public intellectual.”[P.51-52, Modern France: A Very Short Introduction by Vanessa Schwartz]Like the Very Short Introductions on Facebook for more from this series.Image credit:“I accuse…!” (J'accuse…!), open letter published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper L'Aurore by French writer Émile Zola by Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme. CC-BY-SA-4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. -- source link

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