The past active participle (проше́дшее де́йствие) describes a noun by an action it did earlier — "the man who read the book," "the students who passed the exam." Like its present-tense sibling it is a verb wearing adjective clothing: it declines and agrees with its noun, and it replaces a кото́рый-clause where кото́рый is the subject. It is the most bookish participle of all — you will meet it constantly in journalism and literature but almost never hear it in casual speech. The point of this page is to make you able to read it on sight.
How it's formed
Start from the past-tense form and swap the ending. The split depends on whether the masculine past had a final -л.
Most verbs (past has -л): drop -л, add -вший.
| Infinitive | Past (он) | Participle | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|
| чита́ть | чита́л | чита́вший | who was reading |
| прочита́ть | прочита́л | прочита́вший | who read (finished) |
| написа́ть | написа́л | написа́вший | who wrote |
| реши́ть | реши́л | реши́вший | who decided/solved |
| ви́деть | ви́дел | ви́девший | who saw |
| верну́ться | верну́лся | верну́вшийся | who returned |
Notice the reflexive verb: верну́ться → верну́вшийся keeps the -ся after the whole ending, exactly as the present active participle does.
Consonant-stem verbs (no -л in the masculine past): add -ший directly. A small but high-frequency group of verbs has no -л in the он form (нёс, вёл, шёл). For these you add -ший to the consonant stem.
| Infinitive | Past (он) | Participle | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|
| нести́ (carry) | нёс | нёсший | who was carrying |
| идти́ (go) | шёл | ше́дший | who was going |
| привы́кнуть (get used to) | привы́к | привы́кший | who got used to |
| принести́ (bring) | принёс | принёсший | who brought |
Челове́к, прочита́вший э́ту кни́гу, навсегда́ её запо́мнит.
The person who has read this book will remember it forever. — perfective прочита́ть → прочита́вший, the reading is finished.
Прише́дшие на собра́ние удиви́лись пусто́му за́лу.
Those who came to the meeting were surprised by the empty hall. — прийти́ → прише́дший, here used as a plural noun.
Both aspects — and aspect carries the meaning
Unlike the present active participle (imperfective only), the past active participle is built from both aspects, and this is its quiet superpower: the aspect tells you whether the action was ongoing or completed.
- Imperfective чита́вший = "who was reading / used to read" (process, no endpoint)
- Perfective прочита́вший = "who read through / finished" (completed result)
So a single word simultaneously encodes (a) that the action is past relative to the main verb and (b) its aspect. English needs a clause and often extra words ("who had finished reading") to say what прочита́вший says in one form.
Студе́нты, сда́вшие экза́мен, могли́ идти́ домо́й.
The students who had passed the exam could go home. — perfective сдать → сда́вший: the passing is complete.
Я узна́л актёра, игра́вшего гла́вную роль в том фи́льме.
I recognized the actor who played the lead in that film. — imperfective игра́ть → игра́вший: the playing as a process/over a period.
It replaces a subject кото́рый + past clause
Like every active participle, the past active replaces a кото́рый-clause only when кото́рый is the subject — the noun is the doer. The clause it stands in for is always past tense.
- лю́ди, кото́рые прие́хали вчера́ → лю́ди, прие́хавшие вчера́ ✓
- кни́га, кото́рую написа́л а́втор → ✗ (book is the object; use a past passive participle: кни́га, напи́санная а́втором)
It declines exactly like an adjective and agrees in gender, number, and case:
| Case | Phrase | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| Nom. | журнали́ст, написа́вший статью́ | the journalist who wrote the article |
| Acc. | я встре́тил журнали́ста, написа́вшего статью́ | I met the journalist who wrote the article |
| Dat. | я позвони́л журнали́сту, написа́вшему статью́ | I called the journalist who wrote the article |
| Pl. | лю́ди, прие́хавшие вчера́ | the people who arrived yesterday |
Полице́йские задержа́ли челове́ка, разби́вшего витри́ну.
The police detained the man who had smashed the shop window. — accusative человека → разби́вшего, perfective разби́ть.
Все аплоди́ровали спортсме́нам, вы́игравшим золоту́ю меда́ль.
Everyone applauded the athletes who had won the gold medal. — dative спортсме́нам → вы́игравшим.
Register: read it, rarely say it
The past active participle is the most strongly (literary/academic) of the four. It is the connective tissue of newspaper reporting (челове́к, соверши́вший преступле́ние, "the person who committed the crime"), academic writing, and 19th-century prose. In conversation it sounds heavily bookish; speakers replace it with кото́рый.
Сосе́д, верну́вшийся из а́рмии, рассказа́л нам мно́го исто́рий.
Our neighbor, who had come back from the army, told us many stories. — natural in narrative writing; in chat you'd say кото́рый верну́лся.
Это тот па́рень, кото́рый вчера́ нам помога́л.
That's the guy who helped us yesterday. — in speech, кото́рый, not помога́вший (which would sound stiff).
Common Mistakes
❌ Челове́к, прочита́л кни́гу, ушёл. (intending a participle)
That's just a finite verb — to modify the noun you need the participle прочита́вший.
✅ Челове́к, прочита́вший кни́гу, ушёл.
The person who read the book left.
❌ Я поздра́вил студе́нтов, сда́вшие экза́мен.
Agreement error — the noun is accusative (студе́нтов), so the participle must follow: сда́вших, not сда́вшие.
✅ Я поздра́вил студе́нтов, сда́вших экза́мен.
I congratulated the students who passed the exam. — accusative студе́нтов → сда́вших.
❌ Челове́к, шёдший по у́лице, останови́лся.
Wrong stem — идти́ does not give *шёдший. The participle of шёл is ше́дший.
✅ Челове́к, ше́дший по у́лице, останови́лся.
The man who was walking down the street stopped.
❌ Де́вушка, верну́вшая домо́й, легла́ спать.
The reflexive -ся is missing — верну́ться keeps -ся: верну́вшаяся.
✅ Де́вушка, верну́вшаяся домо́й, легла́ спать.
The girl who had come back home went to bed. — reflexive participle верну́вшаяся.
Key Takeaways
- Form it from the past stem: drop -л, add -вший (чита́л → чита́вший, реши́л → реши́вший). Consonant stems with no -л take -ший (нёс → нёсший); note the irregular шёл → ше́дший.
- It exists in both aspects, and aspect carries meaning: чита́вший "was reading," прочита́вший "read/finished."
- It declines like an adjective and replaces a subject кото́рый + past clause. For object nouns, use a passive participle.
- Reflexive verbs keep -ся after the ending: верну́ться → верну́вшийся.
- It is heavily bookish — recognize it for reading; in speech use кото́рый.
- For ongoing simultaneous action use the present active participle; for an accompanying action by the same subject, that's a verbal adverb.
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- Participles: OverviewB2 — Russian has four participles (прича́стия) — present active (чита́ющий), past active (чита́вший / прочита́вший), present passive (чита́емый), past passive (прочи́танный) — all of them verbal adjectives that decline and agree with their noun. They are a bookish, written feature; in speech Russians use кото́рый-clauses instead.
- Present Active Participles (-ущий/-ащий)B2 — The present active participle (чита́ющий, говоря́щий, иду́щий) turns an imperfective verb into an adjective meaning 'the one who is doing X'. It declines like an adjective and replaces a кото́рый-clause where кото́рый is the subject.
- Passive Participles (-емый, -нный, -тый)B2 — Passive participles describe the receiver of an action: present passive (чита́емый, люби́мый — rare, bookish) and the far more important past passive (прочи́танный, напи́санный, постро́енный, откры́тый), which builds both the adjectival passive and the predicate result construction.
- Verbal Adverbs (Деепричастия): OverviewB2 — A verbal adverb (дееприча́стие) is an indeclinable form expressing an accompanying or prior action by the SAME subject as the main verb — чита́я 'while reading', прочита́в 'having read'. It compresses a when/because-clause into one word and must share its subject with the main clause.
- Relative Clauses with КоторыйB1 — Кото́рый ('who/which/that') is the workhorse relative pronoun of Russian. It agrees in GENDER and NUMBER with its antecedent — the noun it points back to — but takes its CASE from its own role inside the relative clause. A comma before кото́рый is obligatory. This page teaches the two-question method that gets the form right every time and shows кото́рый across all six cases.
- Past Tense: FormationA1 — The Russian past tense is strikingly simple to build: drop the infinitive -ть and add -л (masc.), -ла (fem.), -ло (neut.), -ли (plural). The shock for English speakers is that it agrees in GENDER and NUMBER, not person — я/ты/он all say чита́л if male. This page covers the regular pattern, reflexive -ся/-сь, and the consonant-stem verbs whose masculine drops the -л (нёс, мог, шёл).