The aim of the present article is to examine the problem of interliterary contact in the framework of intersystemic contacts, presupposing that the contact with the environment is one of the basic procedures of the evolution of every open system. The contacts between national literary systems is analysed in two ways: 1) as a specific example of contacts between cultural systems and the processes by which they are determined and the different ways they function; 2) by incorporating national literary systems in the semiotic study of relations between cultural systems.