Reb Nachman lived at a time of strife between Hasidim and their opponents, the Misnagdim, rabbinic Jews arrayed against Hassidic practice and philosophy. It was also a time of friction between Hasidim and a growing population of Jews influenced by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) desiring emancipation as equal citizens in Europe's liberalizing nation states. (In 1816, Joseph Perl wrote a denunciation of Hasidic mysticism and beliefs, in which he criticized many of the writings of Nachman, who had died six years earlier. Austrian imperial censors blocked publication of Perl's treatise, fearing that it would foment unrest among the empire's Jewish subjects.)