The article follows Vladimír Svatoň’s comparative approach to literature in its practical application in three polemical debates: one on the concept of modern poetry at the beginning of the 1960s, one on the publishing of texts on literary theory in the period of “normalization” after the Russian occupation, and one on the conception of Slavic studies in the 1990s. These debates form a part of the delineation of the literary field in the political changes in Czech culture. In these occasional texts, we can clearly see Svatoň uniquely consistent thought in the face of the discontinuities of our history.