Despite the success, like many other Russian satirical magazines, it was closed by the Tsarist government after publishing three issues,[1] while Grzhebin was imprisoned.

Mstislav Dobuzhinsky said that Grzhebin performed "a real miracle" as a manager, successfully uniting artists and writers from the opposite circles of Russian literature world in one enterprise.

Because of the very harsh caricatures and satire about the government, Grzhebin was arrested and imprisoned for a year for "disrespecting the Imperial authority".

After the authorities closed the magazine, it was revived under the name Adskaya pochta (Hell's Mail or Infernal Post), but it was also suppressed after publishing three issues.

[8] One of the numbers informed that artists of Simplicissimus will cooperate with Zhupel; the announcement was published with a vignette by Thomas Theodor Heine.