What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 18 March 2023.

Until about 1870, the street was known as Zahradnická, because the area, at that time, consisted mainly of gardens.

Karel IV founded the Convent of St Catherine (Klášter sv. Kateřiny), including a church, in 1355. It was burnt down by the Hussites in 1420, and I should really just save ‘It was burnt down by the Hussites in 1420’ as a template on my phone.

It took almost exactly a century for the convent and the church to be rebuilt; in 1565, the nuns left and were replaced by monks. So I’ve just realised that Czech doesn’t have separate words for ‘monastery’ and ‘convent’.

Both the monastery and the church were given a significant upgrade in Baroque style in the first half of the 18th century, but the monastery fell victim to Joseph II’s reforms, and was turned into a military training centre in 1787.

In 1822, it then became an institution for the mentally ill. It was here that the composer Vilém Blodek (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/02/26/prague-3-day-147-blodkova/) died in 1874.

However, the church reverted to its original function in 1841, before being handed over to the City Museum in 1950.

Meanwhile, after May 1945, the former monastery building began to be used by the neurological clinic of the First Medical Faculty of Charles University.

In the 1990s, the church was restored. It is now owned by the Orthodox Church, which has held services there since 2012, and its official name is Kostel svaté Kateřiny Alexandrijské (Church of Saint Catherine of Alexandria).