What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 10 January 2023.

Čermákova was built in 1896.

Jaroslav Čermák was born in Prague’s Old Town in 1830. Born into a family of doctors, he suffered a major hip injury in his youth, and was confined to bed at times because of this – which may be why he developed an interest in drawing instead.

In 1849, he moved to Antwerp to study painting; this was followed by stints in Paris and Brussels. He developed a particular interest in historical paintings. This, for example, is his picture of Hussites defending a pass.

He would develop this further in the 1860s, when he made trips to Dalmatia and Montenegro, and produced works based on that region’s struggle for liberation, particularly from Turkish rule. These are his pictures of a Montenegrin and a Herzegovinian woman respectively.

He died in Paris in 1878, aged 47, and, while he never seems to have lived in Bohemia during his career, he is buried in Olšany Cemetery.