The article discusses Russian perceptions and responses to Zola's literary theories and practices as a phenomenon of Russian culture. Developing on one level as a polemic between the proponents of a 'scientifically' objective art and the defenders of a traditionally committed literature, the Russian debate on naturalism reflected a variety of positions on the perceived crisis of Russian realism. Zola's role in the Dreyfus case (1897-98) provided the basis for the reconciliation of opposing views and the rehabilitation of Zola as a 'realist' writer in the Russian sense, although Zolaism itself remained problematic for Russian historians and the theoreticians of socialist realism
