What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 23 November 2022.

Třebízského was built around 1903.

From 1940 to 1945, this was Krušnohorksá, after Krušné hory / the Erzgebirge / the Ore Mountains, which separate Bohemia and Saxony.

Václav Beneš was born in Třebíz, near Slaný, in 1849.

The school he went to there was attended at the same time by the poet Jaroslav Vrchlický, who gave his name to Vrchlického sady, the park in front of the main train station.

He then attended a German grammar school in Prague’s New Town, followed by the Faculty of Theology, where he also studied Slavic languages.

Already suffering from tuberculosis as a child, his severe joint problems continued into adulthood.

He started writing in the early 1870s, adding Třebízský to his surname as there was already a Václav Beneš Šumavský writing at the same time.

As a novelist, he was interested in the Hussites, but also in Czech history in general.

One famous novel of his is Královna Dagmar (Queen Dagmar), about the daughter of Přemysl Otakar I.

Graduating in 1875, he was ordained at St Vitus, and became a priest near Beroun. In the same year, he also developed pneumonia and pleurisy.

From 1876, he preached at the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Klecany, where there is a statue in his memory.

However, his health conditions accompanied him for the rest of his life, and he died while being treated at Mariánské Lázně in 1884, aged 35.