What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 22 August 2023.

Čiklova was built in 1906.

From 1906 to 1940, and again from 1945 to 1948, this was Sámova, after Samo, whose empire, from 623 to 658, is the first known political union of Slavic tribes.

During the Nazi occupation, the street was called Hemina, after Hemma, or Emma (died 1006), wife of Bohemian duke Boleslav II.

Alois Václav Čikl was born in Slavětín in 1900. After finishing school, he took courses at the Czechoslovak Hussite Church in Olomouc, and was ordained as a priest by Bishop Gorazd (pictured) in 1922.

When the Nazis occupied Bohemia and Moravia, Čikl, along with an Orthodox priest, Vladimír Petřek, created falsified baptism certificates for Jews so that they could escape persecution.

They also provided a hiding place for Přemysl Šámal (pictured), a leading resistance figure who had been Chancellor of both Tomáš G. Masaryk and Edvard Beneš.

After Heydrich’s assassination in 1942 (he was attacked in May, and died in June), the Orthodox church provided shelter to both Kubiš and Gabčík in Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral. Čikl and Petřek were among those who helped arrange this.

They were arrested, along with Bishop Gorazd, on 18 June. All three were imprisoned in Pankrác, and executed at the Kobylisy shooting range on 4 September.

Čikl was 42; Petřek was 34; Gorazd (real name Matěj Pavlík) was 63.

Čikl’s wife, Marie, was one of many participants in Operation Anthropoid who was murdered at Mauthausen on 24 October.

This picture by Kenyh Cevarom shows a memorial to the victims, placed on Karlovo náměstí in 2012: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Koncentracni_tabor_Mauthausen_Praha_2012_7934.JPG

In February 2020, Čikl and Petřek were canonised by the Orthodox Church – in the same church where they had hidden Kubiš and Gabčík: https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/clanek/domaci/pravoslavna-cirkev-svatorecila-tri-duchovni-kteri-po-atentatu-na-heydricha-pomahali-parasutistum-52965

Gorazd had already been canonised in 1987.