README.md

metadata

license: mit
language:
  - ru
tags:
  - ocr

Basic Description

Dataset contains source images and human-readable extracted texts. All texts were published in Russia in the 19th century and written using pre-reform orthography.

The dataset is designed to train and evaluate optical character recognition systems for texts published in Russian before the orthographic reform (1917).

Data structure

For each text there is a file with its image and the text corresponding to this image. The names of these files are the same except for the extension or suffix _image and _text respectively. The images are placed in either pdf or png files. The texts are contained in files with the extension txt. For example:

• afanasjev-chuzhbinskij_a_s.peterburgskie_igroki.pdf
• afanasjev-chuzhbinskij_a_s.peterburgskie_igroki.txt

Or:

• 300_page_image_009.png
• 300_page_text_009.txt

Long texts (mostly novels) are presented in pdf. They can be found in the pdf subfolder inside the books-pdf-plaintext folder. The neighboring txt subfolder contains their corresponding texts. Short texts of one-page length are in the pages-img-plaintext folder, where images are in png format.

The specifics of the old orthography

Old orthography differs from modern orthography in that it contains 4 letters that were removed from the Russian alphabet after the reform, as well as a set of later abolished specific rules for spelling words.

These letters and rules are taken into account in a special package for Python, which is designed to convert text from the old orthography to the new one: prereform2modern.

Examples

Image

Corresponding text

7

вамъ это происшествіе со всѣми должными приправами: съ непритворнымъ ужасомъ на лицѣ, въ глазахъ; съ содроганіемъ; съ восклицаніями и, наконецъ, съ поднятіемъ рукъ къ Небу!… Вы увидите какъ это послѣднее тѣлодвиженіе картинно въ немъ.»

«Не слишкомъ ли много чести, отецъ ректоръ, для жидовскаго раввина, что вы удостоиваете смѣяться надъ нимъ?»

«Кто вамъ сказалъ, что я смѣюсь надъ нимъ? вотъ увидите сами; пошлите завтра къ нему сказать, чтобъ пришелъ къ вамъ; онъ явится тотчасъ и тогда просто скажите ему, что вамъ любопытно знать для чего всѣ двѣнадцать деревень названы однимъ

Acknowledgements

Dataset was formed thanks to the organizational help of Alexey V. Vdovin.