What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 19 January 2023.

Fričova was built in 1896.

Josef Václav Frič was born in 1829 in Prague. His father was Josef František Frič, a patriotic poet and professor at Charles University.

In 1848, he became head of a radical student association, Slávie, and encouraged students to take to the barricades in the Prague Uprising. He also arranged a ceremony at Ruzyně to commemorate the Battle of Bílá Hora.

After the uprising failed, he fled to Slovakia to fight against the Hungarians. He returned to Prague in 1849, but was arrested during preparations for a new rebellion. In 1851, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for treason. He was pardoned in 1854.

In the 1860s and 1870s, he moved from place to place – London, Paris, Berlin, Budapest, Zagreb, St Petersburg and Rome – but didn’t find sufficient support for his political plans (which were to separate Bohemia from Austria-Hungary entirely).

He returned to Bohemia in 1879, and focused on literature instead. He and his family lived on what is now Jana Masaryka (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/03/17/prague-2-day-46-jana-masaryka/). Frič died in 1890 and is buried at Vyšehrad Cemetery.

His most important literary work was probably the patriotic poem Upír (The Vampire), written in 1849.