Starting from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, this thesis gives an overview of the history of the “superfluous man” character, with an emphasis on Russian and Croatian realism. The year 1850 is the starting point of this thesis. This is the year in which Turgenev published his novella ”The Diary of a Superfluous Man”, through which the motif of a “superfluous man” became common in Russian public and literary life. The role models for this type of (anti)heroes must also be sought for in the period of romanticism, in Goethe’s and Byron’s works, or in Kierkegaard’s philosophy and later in Schopenhauer. The features of a superfluous character, among others, are pessimism, inertness, laziness and resignation. Despite all their predispositions for success on love and business plan, they ultimately fail because of the lack of elen vital. This archetypal way of decaying, that is, a futile and defective existence deserves to be thoroughly explored, which is the purpose of this thesis. In a chronological order, authors of both literatures are presented with at least one of their pieces that will be analysed in this thesis. Literary works are comparatively analysed to highlight the similarities and differences between literary and social aspirations in Russia and Croatia during the 19th century. Accordingly, I will talk about the selected works of I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov, A. I. Hercen and their predecessors in Russian literature. Also, in Croatian literature, I will mention J. Draženović, K. Š. Gjalski, J. Kozarac, J. Leskovar and M.C. Nehajev. Nehajev’s novel Bijeg (1909) set the final boundary to which the character of a “superfluous man” will be problematized in literature.