The international release of Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin was attended by two fitting ironies.

The first was that Vladimir Putin’s Russia—after this month’s election result, it remains undoubtedly his—banned it outright on the grounds of its ‘extremism’. (Yelena Drapeko of the Duma’s culture committee said she had ‘never seen anything so disgusting in my life.’)

Embrace Australia’s finest writers

Meanjin is open again for subscriptions! Thank you all for your patience as we’ve undertaken the transfer of the journal to its new home.

The next edition of Meanjin will be available from December 2026. Information on the purchase of single editions – in print or ePub formats – will be available closer to time.

To stay in touch with our latest news, please sign up here.

Your account

Running and Plotting: Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin

Embrace Australia’s finest writers

Search Meanjin