Moi drug Ivan Lapshin is loosely based on several literary works of his father, Iurii German, mainly on his 1938 novel Lapshin. In terms of its historical context, the film exists at the intersection between Brezhnev’s stagnation and Gorbachev’s reforms. Moi drug Ivan Lapshin was completed in the early 1980s, but was not perceived positively at its pre-screening at Lenfilm and was shelved. However, having made several changes to the film, German managed to secure its release few years later, when the political climate began to change. The film was released shortly prior to the Fifth Congress of the Union of Cinematographers, but nevertheless, is always conventionally considered a perestroika film and part of the cinematic new wave that was represented by the new films seeking to address taboo subjects and those films that were unshelved and released for public consumption after the decades of oblivion. (from http://www.obskura.co.uk/stalin-ghost-lapshin/)