What's in a Prague street name

Originally posted on Twitter on 9 May 2022.

Lukášova was built in 1875 or before.

It’s named after Lukáš Pražský / Luke of Prague. Lukáš (d. 1528) was a bishop of the Unitas Fratrum (Jednota bratrská), otherwise known as the Moravian Church.

He joined the UF shortly after graduating from Charles University in 1481, and was frequently sent abroad to negotiate on the Church’s behalf.

The Church went into a schism in 1495, divided between its early members, who held seclusionary views, and those like Lukáš, who favoured a more secular education for members. The latter side prevailed.

Lukáš was elected to the inner council of the Church in 1494; he was at its head when the Protestant Reformation began and had direct contact with Martin Luther.

Bonus previous name material: until 1940, this was Thurnova, after Count Jindřich Matyáš Thurn-Valsassina (1567-1640), a leader of the Protestant Bohemian Revolt against Ferdinand II, and author of the cheerily-titled Defensionsschrift (“Writing about Defenestration”).

From 1940 to 1945, it was Liberdova, named after Jan Liberda (1700-42), an evangelical preacher and writer who took exile in Berlin, where he, with other exiles, founded the Bethlehem Church (or the Bohemian Church) in Friedrichsstadt.

This will explain why the street was given his name during the Nazi occupation.

The Church was destroyed in an Allied air raid in 1943.

Liberda became Thurnova again in 1945, before getting its current name in 1947.