The (poly)systemic theory, developed by Itamar Even-Zohar and thoroughly researched on the Slovenian territory by Marijan Dović, can also be applied to the so-called “smaller” literary systems, like for example the literature of national minorities. One of these “smaller” literary systems is the one created by Slovenians in Italy: a diverse and dynamic corpus of texts, relations and structures, which are – despite being constantly researched in bio-bibliographies – in many aspects still open to new analysis. One of these aspects is offered here as food for thought. The contemporary researchers of this system (Miran Košuta, Marija Pirjevec, Lojzka Bratuž, etc.) agree on the fact that it should be analysed as an autonomous system which is not completely separated from the system of Slovenian national literature. Researching a literary system that is not completely autonomous, like the literature of the Slovenian community in Italy, can be demanding, because it is difficult to detach it from its original matter, namely from the Slovenian literary system. The latter is conceived as a large contextual net uniting and interweaving the literature created on the geographical area of Slovenia (canonised “national Slovenian literature”), the literature created on the linguistic area of the Slovenian language (the “literature of Slovenian minorities in Austria, Italy and Hungary”), and the literature produced in areas where Slovenians live (the “literature of emigrated Slovenians”).