The Society of Russian Dramatists and Opera Composers (Russian: Общество русских драматических писателей и оперных композиторов) was an organisation launched in 1874 in Moscow with a view to defending the rights of the authors of music and drama in Russia.
[1] The Assembly of Russian Writers, as it was originally called, was founded on 28 November 1870 by a group of authors who gathered at the place of the translator Vladimir Rodislavsky, initially to find the means for preventing works from being produced on theatre stage without their authors' permission.
After Ostrovsky's death, he was succeeded by first Sergey Yuriev, then Apollon Maykov (the slavist, not to be confused with the renowned poet) and Ippolit Shpazhinsky.
In 1887 Anton Chekhov, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak became its members.
Both functioned separately up until 1925 when, re-organized, they merged again into the Union of the Drama and Music Writers (Союз драматических и музыкальных писателей).