Аннотация:The article considers the literary position and works of Russian poetess Evdokiya Rostopchina in the light of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the social field of literature. In the 1830s Rostopchina mostly writes specifically “female” poetic texts, mainly devoted to love and rooted in the world of secular entertainment (balls). Her poems are addressed to her friends and acquaintances from genteel society. The poetry is characterized by confidential intimacy diaristic features. Her poetical works suggest a highly educated reader: these texts are equipped with epigraphs in different languages. From the late 1830s, the poetess begins to comprehend herself as the successor of the great Russian poets: A.S. Pushkin and V.A. Zhukovsky. The struggle for symbolic capital and a place on the field of literature causes a change in the genre system of her creativity: the poetess cultivates poetic epistles, connected with the form of the aristocratic album. At the same time, she writes and publishes a poem dedicated to the ruling empress, capable of endowing her with symbolic capital. Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, Rostopchina’s literary attitudes and strategy begin to be perceived as distinctly archaic, leading to her marginalization.