What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 2 August 2022.

Husitská was built before 1872, and has had its current name since 1947.

Husitská is named after its most famous resident, the architect, philosopher, politician, nuclear physicist and adult film actress Kateřina ‘CoCo’ Husitská.

A woman so impressive that the street was named after her 24 years before she was even born.

Oh, who are we kidding? It’s named after the Hussites. All of them.

Until 1875, this was the Horská silnice, the ‘mountain road’ which led to Kutná Hora.

From 1875 to 1940, and again from 1945 to 1947 it was Husova, i.e. Jan Hus had the street to himself before it was decided to make it belong to a huge number of people instead. #communism

From 1940 to 1945, the Nazis clearly had a ‘change a street name while keeping as many letters as possible’ thing going on, as this became Huttenstraße.

Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523) being a German knight and satirist who became a follower of Martin Luther.