This thesis analyses the representation of the social and physiological reality in the works of the Russian realist writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Croatian realist writer Vjenceslav Novak. The term “realism” represents a period in literary history that consciously and deliberately tries to describe reality, which is to say that it seeks to describe people, nature, and events in such a way that it seems to the reader that the depiction is true to everyday life. The question is, are these characters real or part of the writer's imagination? The characters are portrayed socially, physically and psychologically, and they also describe the environments that extend the character's knowledge. In their work these writers portrayed people from all walks of life, but most often dealt with the lowest and poorest. The analyzed works are Crime and Punishment, The Gambler, Humiliated and Insulted and Poor Folk by Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky; and Posljednji Stipančići, U glib, Nezasitnost i bijeda, Pripovijest o Marcelu Remeniću i Iz velegradskog podzemlja by Vjenceslav Novak. In the introductory part of the paper, the question is raised whether Dostoyevsky and Novak portray real characters that reflect a certain historical period or whether they are fictional characters that are merely the creation of their writers. We will explain the fundamental principle of their work through the idea of literature as mimesis, and after that we will try to relate their biographies to their works. What follows then is a description of the period of realism and authors’ biographies, followed in turn by a description of the characters and the space in which they are located, as well as a psychological analysis of the characters and their comparison. Both Dostoyevsky and Novak skillfully portray the problems of the working class in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, thus showing us the problems of poverty, thought, desire and aspirations of impoverished people, as well as the problems of alcohol and gambling, which, as an attempt to escape from real life, bring even greater problems to those afflicted. Their works are written in a similar fashion, with notable differences. Novak is much more conservative and stricter than Dostoyevsky, which is also shown in the analysis.