According to both historical and sociological research, the appearance of voluntary associations played an important role in refashioning the social order based on rigid social-legal divisions. By introducing new social arrangements, voluntary associations undermined the very idea of closed corporative worlds organized around rank or estate. While recent studies have demonstrated the significant dimension of associational activity in late Imperial Russia, the role of voluntary associations in shaping new collective identities has not yet been addressed. This article seeks to consider this issue by examining these associations’ practices of voluntary membership, norms of interpersonal communication, and mechanisms for disciplining those who did not meet the ideological or moral standards imposed on their members. The article focuses on the activity of the Society of Zealots of Russian Historical Education (Obshchestvo revnitelei russkogo istoricheskogo prosveshcheniia, 1895–1918), whose unique archive has not yet been utilized in historical research. From the methodological point of view, the article demonstrates that applying the concept of sociability makes it possible to discern the new tensions and conflicts that arose from the coexistence of old hereditary and new voluntary frameworks of social grouping.