Pre-1918 Cyrillic
until the 1918 reform · Russian records: civil registration, parish registers, censuses
Alphabet
The letters as they are drawn. Compare them with the record: it is the shape that counts, not the size.
АБВГДЕЖЗИІКЛМНОПРСТУФХЦЧШЩЪЫЬѢЭЮЯѲѴ
абвгдежзиікл
мнопрстуфхцчшщъыьѣэюяѳѵ
Reading traps
| What you think you see | What it may be | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|---|
| и | і · н | и, і and н look alike in a quick hand. Before 1918, і was written before a vowel: Марія, but Иванъ. |
| е | ѣ | The ѣ (yat) was pronounced like е and was abolished in 1918. A modern index writes Алексей where the record writes Алексѣй. |
| ф | ѳ | The ѳ (fita) stood for ф in words of Greek origin: Ѳедоръ is today's Фёдор. |
| ш | щ · ц | ш, щ and ц differ only by a tail, often swallowed by the binding or the wear at the foot of the page. |
| ь | ъ · ы | The final ъ was silent and vanished in 1918: Петровъ is Петров. Do not confuse it with ь, which does change the word. |
| п | н · и | п, н and и are all strokes; it is the bar — horizontal, slanted or absent — that separates them. |
Ligatures and vanished letters
| ѣ | reads е | yat, abolished in 1918 |
| і | reads и | decimal i, abolished in 1918 |
| ѳ | reads ф | fita, abolished in 1918 |
| ѵ | reads и | izhitsa, already rare in the 19th century |
| ъ | reads — | final hard sign, silent, abolished in 1918 |
Write it to compare
Type a name you think you recognise: it appears in this script, to be set against the strokes in front of you.
Decoder
Type what you think you read, in today's letters. The decoder offers the neighbouring readings — one substitution at a time, because two stacked guesses can no longer be checked.
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