What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 12 December 2022.

Žitná was built between the 15th and 18th centuries, possibly making this one 400 years older than any other street we’ve covered so far.

Žitná is the feminine form of the adjective stemming from žito, rye. (I guess I’ve never mentioned that these streets are almost all feminine because ulice is too? If not, I’m mentioning it now)

Prague’s and-yet-we-still-call-it New Town was founded by Karel IV in 1348, and a rye market subsequently existed here.

What is now Žitná was once two roads – what is now the western half was already called Žitná, whereas the eastern part was called Na Rybničku (now the name of another local street, coming up soon enough).

They were united as Žitnobranská in the 18th century, becoming just plain Žitná in 1869.

Žitná brana – the rye gate – was created at the same time as the new city fortifications in the late 17th century.

In 1827, Karel Chotek, Supreme Burgrave of Bohemia, established a promenade, Na Šancích, that led through this gate (among others). Eventually, a park was opened here, with two concert venues.

You might have guessed that Chotek would also open Chotkovy sady five years later.

This photo of the Rye Gate is from about 1875; however, in the same year, the process of demolishing the city walls started, and the gate obviously went with them.

Žitná is now split between Prague 1 (its northern side) and Prague 2 (its southern side).

On the Prague 2 side, a memorial was unveiled – just four days ago – to Karel Janšta, who fled Czechoslovakia in 1939 and moved to Britain, where he became an RAF pilot.

He became a member of the Czechoslovak State Council in London.

When he returned to Czechoslovakia, Edvard Beneš saw him as a potential Minister of Defence; the Communists, however, banned him from continuing in the Air Force and forced him to become an asphalt worker.

Janšta lived in this house on Žitná until his death in 1986. A report on his life and the new memorial is on https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/domaci/3549553

I wasn’t aware of this on Friday – I just took a photo of the memorial yesterday (Sunday) because it looked interesting, and then got home and read the rest.

This is the perfect encapsulation of why it is such a joy to be writing these threads.