What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 17 October 2022.

Chrudimská was built in 1908.

Chrudim, population 23,000, is the second-largest city in the Pardubice region. It was first mentioned in writing in 1055, when Břetislav I died there during a military campaign.

A proper city was then constructed here starting in 1263, at the initiative of Přemysl Otakar II. It became a pro-Hussite city in 1421.

In 1620, the year of the Battle of Bílá Hora, Chrudim supported Frederick V (The Winter King) – and paid dearly for this when he, and the Hussites, were defeated.

Chrudim was the setting of the region’s administrative court from 1854 to 1949, located on the site of the Dominican monastery, which had been destroyed during the Hussite wars.

While Chrudim did well when industrialisation came in the 19th century, it also got overtaken in regional importance by Pardubice, largely because of the latter’s better geographical position and transport links.

Nowadays, Chrudim is best known for its connection to puppetry – its annual puppetry festival (Loutkářská Chrudim) was launched in 1951, is the longest-running such festival in the world: https://loutkarskachrudim.cz/en/front-page-en/

There’s also a fantastic-looking museum, which also serves to remind us that sometimes the simplest of URLs are the most satisfying ones: https://puppets.cz/en

Perhaps the most famous resident of Chrudim was Josef Ressel (1793-1857), who has been credited with inventing the ship propellor.

For language nerds, Chrudim ends in a consonant but is feminine, and has two acceptable genitive forms: Chrudimi and Chrudimě.