The Soviet project of world literature combined the construction of a multinational literary space within the USSR with an international claim to validity. The Soviet Literary Cosmopolis. Literature, Nation-Building and the Claim on the World, edited by Susanne Frank (Research Area 1: "Competing Communities"), Zaal Andronikashvili and Thomas Lahusen, examines these interconnected trajectories while foregrounding imperial continuities across political ruptures and moving beyond established divisions between official and 'uncensored' literature.

Case studies from Armenian, Georgian, Kyrgyz, Kazakhstani and Ukrainian literary contexts are brought into conversation with analyses of African, American and East European scenarios. Providing the conceptual framework for these investigations, Frank's substantial introduction develops the notion of the 'Soviet Literary Cosmopolis', while individual essays trace adaptation, translation and Socialist Realist aesthetics as central strategies through which the Soviet project of world literature took shape, both within the Soviet Union and abroad.

The volume contains contributions by former Cluster members Galin Tihanov (Senior Fellow at EXC 2020, 2022), Galina Babak (Early Career Fellow at EXC 2020, 2022/2023), Sona Mnatsakanyan (Doctoral Candidate/Research Associate, Research Area 1: "Competing Communities") and Niovi Zampouka (Research Associate, Research Area 1: "Competing Communities").

Developed in the context of the EXC 2020 project (Post-)Soviet Literary Cosmopolis and its 2021 conference The Soviet Project of World Literature and its Legacies, the book appears as volume 26 of WeltLiteraturen / World Literatures, the publication series of the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies.

Susanne Frank, Zaal Andronikashvili and Thomas Lahusen, eds. The Soviet Literary Cosmopolis. Literature, Nation-Building and the Claim on the World. WeltLiteraturen / World Literatures 26. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2026. (Open Access)