This article engages with cosmopolitan conceptions of culture that flourished in the nineteenth century Caucasus with a view to clarifying the relevance of these legacies today. I focus in particular on the polymath writer ʿAbbās Qulī Āghā Bākīkhānūf (1794–1847). As I explore Bākīkhānūf’s historical writing, I consider how the Persianate literary tradition of which he partakes advance a cosmopolitan conception of community that contests the nationalist histories promulgated by modern European historiography. As a scientific and literary project, Bākīkhānūf’s cosmological cosmopolitanism shows how epistemic openness advances cultural inclusivity, in part by recognizing the relationship between the literary imagination and scientific inquiry.