Considering existentialism as a direction that transfers its roots from philosophical to literary domain, its reception is inevitably mentioned in croatian literature. Therefore, the central part of the work is focused on the analysis and interpretation of one part of the poetic opus of Vesna Parun and Josip Pupačić. For the interpretation of Parun's poetry, the following collections were selected: Gong (1966.), Cursed rain (1969.) and I am ashamed to die (1974.), while from Pupačić's literary work, the following were highlighted: Flower outside of itself (1958.), Coronation (1965.) and My cross is still burning (1971.). In the beginning of the work, the consideration of existentialism through two directions – christian and nonreligious – is highlighted, and some of their representatives (Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus) are mentioned. Given that existentialism focuses on the individual, rather than the collective, the fundamental axis of the problem is set through the study of the post-war development of lyric and the generation of krugovaši, and „borderline situations“ are also highlighted as inevitable life backbones