The precursor to the Society was founded by a group of secondary school graduates from the gymnasium of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg on July 15, 1801.
According to Nikolai Grech, the founders of the Society "were prepared for a strenuous and exacting study of literature".
Born, Popugaev, and the others were to demonstrate the erudition obtained from their studies of science and the humanities at the gymnasium.
Dmitriev worked in the field of astronomy, Volkov later in chemistry, and Krasovsky in physics and mineralogy; Popugaev was also learned in science.
These included Fyodor Glinka, Anton Delvig, Wilhelm Küchelbecker, Yevgeny Baratynsky, Orest Somov, Alexei Martos, and Kondraty Ryleyev.