after airing an episode showing a critical caricature of Boris Yeltsin but those charges were dropped after television network president condemned this action. Georgia The 1987 art film Repentance, initially banned in Russia and Russia-controlled Eastern Europe, only shown in Georgia before being internationally released in 1987 with permission of by-then head of state Mikhail Gorbachev, contained satirical allusions to Stalin. Academician Dmitry Likhachov considered the film "significant" for society as a whole: "The past does not die. It is necessary to publish in journals of mass circulation works which were not published in the past. The main theme in literature now is repentance." Other Georgian films that were banned include My Grandmother (revived 1976), an art film with surreal and satirical elements, and Saba, a satirical drama by Mikheil Chiaureli. References and notes