An essay by Dr. Judah Leib (Leon) Pinsker, Autoemancipation was published in the aftermath of the pogroms that swept Russia in 1881-82. Published in 1882, it dealt with the causes of anti-Semitism and offered a possible solution for the Jews. Pinsker argued that the Jews were foreigners everywhere, and that even if they managed to assimilate, anti-Semitism would remain an incurable illness, fueled by the peculiar condition of the Jewish people, which has no language, no country and no government. The emancipation given to Jews by Gentiles was, to Pinsker, a coup de grâce. The Jews, Pinsker argued, must regain their national dignity and security and establish for themselves a land of refuge. Even more urgently needed, he argued, was a national awakening and self-liberation ("autoemancipation"), the components of the process of national renaissance. Pinsker's work became one of the basic writings on Zionism.