What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 27 October 2022.

Korunní was built in 1889.

From 1956 to 1990, this was Wilhelma Piecka, after Wilhelm Pieck, first president of the GDR from 1949 until his death in 1960 (i.e. this is a rare case of somebody getting a street named after them during their lifetime).

The rest of the time, it’s been Crown Street. Not named after the Czech currency, achievements in dentistry or that show about some island on Netflix.

It’s specifically named after the Crown of St Wenceslas, made for the coronation of Karel IV.

The crown was made in 1346, which puts it in the unique position of being something that I’ve mentioned in this series that wasn’t made by Přemysl Otakar II.

It was declared the property of the nation as a whole, not just of the King.

It’s held at the St. Wenceslas Chapel at St Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle, and doesn’t get brought out very often at all; indeed, its exact location is not known by the public.

There are seven locks that need unlocking before you can access it. The owners of these locks are currently Jan Graubner, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, Miloš Vystrčil, Miloš Zeman, Petr Fiala, Václav Malý and Zdeněk Hřib, and there’s a prize if you can name their positions.

The last outing was (I think) in 2016, on the 700th anniversary of the birth of Karel IV; the next one will presumably be next year, when we’ll have a new president: https://www.metro.cz/praha/narozeniny-cisare-karla-iv-pripomene-vystava-korunovacnich-klenotu.A160503_185804_praha-metro_lupo

Here’s a video of Zeman two months after his inauguration in 2013. You’re welcome, especially for the comments:

The crown has 96 precious stones and is made of 21-22 carat gold. I really don’t know my carats, but I do know this makes it 3-4 carats better than the gold that Madonna sang about not needing in ‘Express Yourself’.

The first person to be crowned with it was Karel IV, in 1347; the last one was Ferdinand I of Austria (who was also Ferdinand V of Bohemia) in 1835.

Legend has it that anybody who puts the crown on their head without being entitled to will die within a year.

There’s a totally unsubstantiated story that Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, who was assassinated in June 1942, put the crown on in November 1941: https://plus.rozhlas.cz/stala-se-legenda-o-svatovaclavske-korune-osudnou-i-reinhardu-heydrichovi-6510339

Counterpoint: he was assassinated because he was a c**t.

Wikipedia has some great photos of the crown, courtesy of one K. Pacovský: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Crown_of_Saint_Wenceslas