An introduction to cosmopolitanism and nationalism in late socialism

Abstract This special issue on “Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism in Late Socialist Cultures” revisits cosmopolitanism and nationalism in the cultural, political, and intellectual landscapes of late socialism in Central and Eastern Europe. The introduction builds on Alexei Yurchak’s paradox of the Soviet “eternal state” and Ronald Grigor Suny’s account of nationalism as a centrifugal force, while the contributions interrogate the contradictions that marked the socialist twilight: between Party and state, nationalism and internationalism, consumerism and austerity, openness and closure. The introductory article situates Stephen Kotkin’s institutional analysis of state–Party decoupling alongside Ivan and Balazs Szelényi’s Weberian account of contingent system breakdown, as well as Vladimir Popov’s longue durée economic argument about the cyclical viability of socialism. The article also draws on Keeran and Kenny’s reinterpretation of the Soviet collapse, using their framework to illuminate the structural tensions and political contradictions that shaped late socialism in Eastern Europe. At the cultural level, the introduction explores the logics of late-socialist aesthetics through Lilya Kaganovsky’s reading of cinema as a site of absent desire, Dominic Boyer and Alexei Yurchak’s theorization of stiob as an aesthetic of parody, and Svetlana Boym’s mythologies of everyday life. Case studies from Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia illustrate how cultural production mediated both cosmopolitan aspirations and nationalist revivals, often under conditions of scarcity, censorship, and technological change.