Émile Zola and Ivan Turgenev stand among the most influential literary figures of the nineteenth century, known for their penetrating explorations of society and morality. Though writing in different national and cultural contexts – Zola in France and Turgenev in Russia – both authors employed realist techniques to illuminate the struggles of individuals within oppressive or evolving societal systems. However, their methods, thematic focuses, and ideological commitments diverge in critical ways, including particularly with respect to their Jewish characters, which is examined in some detail below.
While Zola (1840-1902) is a significant figure in Jewish history known for his leading role in the Dreyfus Affair, as the author of J’Accuse!, and for his significant contributions to the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted Dreyfus, he was more broadly known as one of the great literary figures of his time. A great French novelist, playwright, and the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, he was also an influential journalist, writing for several French newspapers and producing notable works of criticism and social advocacy who was nominated for the first (1901) and second (1902) Nobel Prizes in literature.
Prior to the Dreyfus Affair, which began with the arrest of Dreyfus on October 15, 1894, there is little documented evidence of Zola maintaining any intimate friendships with Jews or participating in Jewish affairs, and he wrote very few novels that included Jewish characters or themes. One notable exception is La Curee (“The Kill,” 1871), a novel in Zola’s monumental Les Rougon-Macquart series, the collective title given to a cycle of twenty of his novels. Subtitled Histoire Naturelle et Sociale d’une Famille sous le Second Empire (“Natural and Social History of a Family Under the Second Empire”), the cycle follows the lives of the members of the two titular branches of a fictional family living during the Second French Empire (1852-1870) and is one of the most prominent works of the French naturalism literary movement. The naturalism movement, which Zola originated, essentially embraces author detachment, the maintenance of an impersonal tone, a rejection of Romanticism, and the embrace of determinism, social commentary, and scientific objectivism in the fictional portrayal of reality.
While Zola is celebrated today as a defender of Jewish rights, his fiction, particularly in La Curee, reflects the complexities and contradictions inherent in French attitudes toward Jews in the late 19th century. The character of Gundermann is not antisemitic in a crude or malicious sense; rather, he functions as a cultural symbol, a representation of capitalist power, secrecy, and outsider influence. Zola aims to situate Gundermann within the broader framework of his realism and moral critique, while also uncovering the social and political layers embedded in his depiction of a Jewish financier at the heart of France’s economic machinery.
In La Curee, Gundermann is not a major character in terms of “screen time” or dialogue, but he plays an essential symbolic and narrative role as the ultimate financier, “the money behind the money,” the man who controls the flow of capital in Paris’s frenzied real estate market. Saccard, the novel’s antihero, is portrayed as a master manipulator and opportunist, but even he is ultimately dependent on the goodwill and approval of Gundermann; as Zola writes, “He knew that behind every speculation, behind every real estate boom, loomed the immense figure of Gundermann.”
The fact that Zola does not describe Gundermann or assign him any dialogue renders the character spectral and mythic. He is not a character in the traditional sense but, rather, a powerful, enigmatic, and vaguely threatening force who is both part of French society and apart from it, both indispensable and foreign. Zola’s narrative structure mirrors the way that Jews, particularly wealthy Jews like the Rothschilds, were perceived in the French public imagination as hidden influencers and cosmopolitan elites with ambiguous loyalty to the French nation – the perfect environment in which the Dreyfus Affair would take seed and grow. Gundermann is neither evil nor corrupt; in fact, Zola characterizes him as rational, sharp, adroit, quick-thinking, and more disciplined than the French speculators around him, all admirable qualities, but his Jewishness is never far from the surface.
Zola was deeply aware of the cultural symbols of Jews as capitalists and financiers and, although he was generally sympathetic to marginalized groups, he did not shy away from using such figures in his fiction. Thus, Gundermann serves a dual purpose in La Curee: he is both a realistic figure, modeled after a real historic figure, and a symbol of financial determinism in a morally compromised Parisian high society. Judaism, in this symbolic economy, is not addressed theologically or culturally but, rather, economically and structurally. Zola does not delve into Jewish ritual, community, or spirituality, and Gundermann is linked entirely to his role in finance, which reinforces the longstanding European tendency to reduce Jewish identity to economic function, whether as moneylenders in medieval literature, usurers in Shakespeare, or bankers in modern fiction. Yet, Zola seems to carefully avoid caricature, and his treatment of Gundermann is clinical rather than overtly antisemitic.
One of the most striking aspects of La Curee through a Jewish lens is the realization that Zola’s own views on Jews, while progressive for his time, were shaped by the very assumptions he later sought to challenge. It is interesting that while he emerged as the hero of the Dreyfus Affair and as a moral hero and ally of French Jewry, La Curee predated the Dreyfus Affair by nearly three decades and, in the novel, we do not see the fiery defender of Jewish rights. Rather, we see the writer who, in his diagnosis of French decadence, chooses a Jewish financier and incorporates him into his naturalistic framework, risking the perpetuation of Jews as secret rulers of systems, perhaps the ultimate antisemitic trope. Thus, it is thus clear that Zola had not yet arrived at a fully developed critique of antisemitism.
Nonetheless, his portrayal of Gundermann, when compared with more virulent portrayals of Jews by other authors at the time, does reflect a measure of restraint and nuance; where Saccard and others are driven by greed and vanity, Zola’s Gundermann operates with cold logic and long-term vision. Zola thereby suggests that the true villain is not actually any individual, Jewish or otherwise, but the economic and political system that rewards speculation and punishes morality. Thus, at the end of the day, La Curee is a fascinating case study of an author grappling with the tensions between social realism and cultural myth, between empathy and stereotype, as he links urban modernization with spiritual collapse.
In Zola’s post-Dreyfus Vérité (“Truth,” 1903, published posthumously), Marc Froment, a secular and idealistic schoolteacher, moves with his wife and children to the fictional town of Maillebois, where he takes up a position at a local school. Soon after his arrival, a young nephew of Jewish teacher Simon Lehmann is found murdered, and suspicion quickly falls on Simon, whose arrest and trial becomes a national scandal. The bishop and clerical educational leaders incite violence, and the Catholic Church hierarchy turns the townspeople against Simon by playing on their ignorance, fears and, most significantly, their antisemitism. Despite the total lack of evidence, Simon is convicted but, even as he becomes a public spectacle, he retains his quiet dignity and emotional resilience and, though he is convicted based solely on prejudice, forged testimony, and clerical manipulation, he never renounces his faith in truth and justice.
Marc, convinced of Simon’s innocence, undertakes a determined campaign to prove his innocence, but he faces unyielding and fierce opposition from the Church, the judicial system, and many of the townspeople who are invested in Simon’s guilt. His investigation reveals a conspiracy of lies and institutional corruption, but, as the case drags on over the years, he gathers allies who support his cause and, ultimately, Simon is exonerated, the real circumstances of the crime are brought to light, the reactionary institutions that orchestrated his downfall are discredited, and a secular, enlightened France emerges, led by honest educators and guided by truth. The novel ends with Marc continuing his work as an educator, believing that truth and justice can be achieved only through reason, education, and the rejection of prejudice, and he story closes with a hopeful vision of a future shaped by secular values and moral progress.
Vérité is a thinly-veiled fictional transposition of the Dreyfus Affair, with Simon playing the role of Dreyfus and Marc Froment as Zola. Simon and Dreyfus are both culturally Jewish men lacking any overt Jewish practice; both are intellectually admired, yet culturally “other,” which leads to both becoming scapegoats; both are men of quiet dignity, falsely accused of heinous crimes; both trials are shams, orchestrated by institutional forces and fueled by antisemitic conspiracy allegations; the path to justice is achieved in both cases by the determination of a few indefatigable individuals, sustained by public pressure and reason; both emerge as parabolic heroes, emblems of justice, truth, and secular republican values; and in both the novel and J’Accuse!, Zola explores the mechanisms of injustice in provincial French society, including the reality of deep-rooted antisemitism, the hypocrisy and corruption of the judiciary and clergy, and the battle between truth and institutional power.
Significantly, while early in his career, Zola used Jewish characters such as Gundermann merely as a societal type, these Jewish characters in Vérité become empathic moral subjects rather than mere stereotypes, evidencing his increased moral clarity with respect to Jews in the aftermath of the Dreyfus Affair. Interestingly, Zola completed Vérité shortly before his death and had planned a sequel, Justice, which was not to be. Zola had also expressed a desire to visit Eretz Yisrael and planned to write two novels related to Jerusalem, one set in ancient times and one contemporary bur, sadly, that, too, was not to be.
In this April 18, 1879 correspondence to Russian novelist, poet, and playwright Ivan Turgenev, whose novel Fathers and Sons is universally considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces of Russian literature, Zola writes (in French):
My dear friend, I was just asked at Le Figaro if I knew someone competent to do a comprehensive and serious study of the nihilists of Russia. I thought you might be able to point out a competent man. Would you allow me to send a card from me to the editorial secretary of Le Figaro? I thought it might be useful to Russia if the article in this widely circulated newspaper were well written and in a liberal vein. A word of reply, I beg you, as soon as possible…
The nihilist movement was a philosophical, cultural, and revolutionary movement in the Russian Empire during the late 19th and early 20th centuries from which the broader nihilistic philosophy originated. The nihilism movement in Russia, which arose from a generation of young radicals disillusioned with the social reformers of the past and from a growing divide between the old aristocratic intellectuals and the new radical intelligentsia, came to represent the movement’s unremitting attacks on morality, religion, and traditional society. In the November 21, 1880 issue of Le Gaulois, Guy de Maupassant published an article crediting Turgenev as the inventor of the term “nihilism” – but Turgenev had in fact borrowed it from a Russian sociologist, incarcerated since his participation in the Commune (but Turgenev did, however, popularize the term).
Turgenev admired Zola and helped him to gain a Russian foothold by facilitating his contributions to Vestnik Evropy (the “Herald of Europe”), a prominent liberal journal, and he played an active role in coaching and promoting Zola’s career in Russia, via both correspondence and editorial support. (And, as we see from our letter, this relationship was reciprocal, as Zola recommended Turgenev to write for Le Figaro.) The two great writers corresponded actively between 1872-1880, discussing publications, translations, and other issues.
After studying at universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Turgenev (1818-1883) pursued philosophy and history at the University of Berlin. His desire to leave Russia intensified after the hostile reception of his 1862 masterpiece, Fathers and Sons, often considered the first modern Russian novel; the work was criticized by younger readers as slanderous and by older generations for its sympathetic portrayal of nihilism. When Turgenev left for London and later Paris, where he was warmly received as an ambassador of Russian culture, he befriended leading literary figures, including Gustave Flaubert, George Sand, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Henry James, and Zola. It was Turgenev’s portrayal of nihilism in Fathers and Sons (1863), published in France, that likely led Zola to write our letter and to recommend him to Le Figaro. The press was eager to cover the subject, particularly especially considering recent events: on April 14, 1879, just four days before our letter, Russian Tsar Alexander II had survived yet another assassination attempt by Russian nihilists.
Before writing The Zhid, Turgenev knew almost nothing about Jewish life in Russia; he had not yet shown any humanitarian support for Jews; and his “knowledge” was mostly a reflection of his times, when antisemitism was deeply woven into Russian literature and public discourse As but one humorous manifestation of his ignorance, he originally wrote that his Jewish character owned pigs, notably forbidden in Judaism (he changed this after being corrected). When he opined that “the ‘Jewish problem’ is part of other issues of Russian life which are far more important” and that “when the latter is solved, the former will be solved of its own accord,” he manifested a comprehensive ignorance of the woeful reality of Jewish life under nineteenth century imperial Russian rule.
In The Zhid (1847), a young Russian officer, Nikolai Ilyitch, recounts events from the 1814 encampment outside Danzig during the French siege of the city. Among the camp followers is Hirshel, an elderly and physically frail Jew whom Turgenev unmistakably describes through the common antisemitic tropes of the time, as he introduces the protagonist of his story as follows:
This Zhid [an antisemitic slur for Jew], whose name was Hirshel, was continually hanging about our camp, offering his services as an agent, getting us wine, provisions, and other such trifles. He was a thinnish, red-haired little man, marked with smallpox; he blinked incessantly with his diminutive little eyes, which were reddish too; he had a long crooked nose, and was always coughing.
Moreover, Hirshel is a rapacious opportunist who uses his beautiful daughter, Sarah, to curry favor and wealth and to provide “services” to tempt Russian officers, and he is obsessed with money, reinforcing the trope of the greedy, alien Jew. When the officer observes Hirshel sketching Russian camp fortifications, he is arrested by a sergeant, and Nikolai frames him as a French spy.
When Hirshel is subjected to a sham trial presided over by a general, Nikolai is afforded an opportunity to intervene, but Hirshel is convicted notwithstanding the absence of any evidence. Turgenev describes Hirshel’s shrieking and hysterical “meowing” before his execution in grotesque, animalistic terms and, when Hirshel is hanged, some in the crowd react with chilling detachment while others laugh mockingly. Nikolai and his officer comrades reflect on the affair with detachment, marking Hirshel’s death as official and noting no further inquiry, but the story ends with the offices’ lingering unease and resignation to the gravity of military life under war conditions.
However, notwithstanding Turgenev’s characterization of “the Zhid,” he shows empathy in exposing injustice, hinting at a critical stance against systemic cruelty. Some critics argue that while immersed in stereotype, Turgenev expressed hints of moral unease and “aristocratic disgust,” a reflection of liberal tensions in nineteenth century Russian society, and that he was not uncritically antisemitic but, rather, trapped within his cultural milieu. In sum, his story reveals both adherence to stereotypes and faint moral inspection and a window into the complex, uneasy perspectives of a liberal Russian writer confronting societal injustice.
Turgenev never prominently featured Jewish characters in later major works, with the notable exception of Susanna, his protagonist in An Unhappy Girl (1868). She is the sweet daughter of a gentile émigré landowner and his first wife, a gentle and beautiful Jewess who sadly dies young. Though raised in a Russian-German cultural environment, she cannot escape the “taint” of her Jewish heritage and “otherness” and, when her stepfather abandons her for his biological daughter and the community rejects her amid whispering about her Jewish descent, the deeply humiliated girl commits suicide. Susanna becomes a lingering tragic figure, as her eventual erasure from communal memory underscores her role as a social outcast.
Unlike Turgenev’s earlier work, there are no crude Jewish caricatures, and he paints Susanna as a sympathetic human figure who was the unfortunate victim of societal alienation only because of her Jewish heritage. Her fate, which implicitly critiques the cruelty of social gossip, exclusion, and even casual bigotry, illuminates Turgenev’s evolving sympathy for those marginalized by their heritage.
In this sense, he is comparable to Zola both before and after the Dreyfus Affair. Interestingly, much like Zola later in life, Turgenev became personally sympathetic to Jewish suffering, quietly denounced pogroms and showed concern for Jewish victims, and unambiguously deplored antisemitism although, unlike Zola, he avoided public polemics and did not speak out publicly or specifically challenge antisemitic discourse in his writings.
