What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 18 September 2023.

Nový Svět was originally a village, developing outside Hradčany in the early 1300s, and, in 1360, being attached to it as ordered by Charles IV. Not surprisingly, many of its residents worked at the Castle.

And its attachment to Hradčany is why it became known as a ‘new world’ from 1360 on.

It burnt down twice (once during the Hussite Wars, and once during the 1541 fire that devastated this side of the Vltava). After the latter, the street started to take its current form.

Nový Svět also does pretty well in the ‘[…] lived here!’ stakes, as we’ll see below.

Number 1, U zlatého noha (The Golden Griffin), was once the residence of Tycho Brahe (previously covered, in brief, on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/08/prague-1-day-19-keplerova/).

It was also the birthplace of Jaroslav Drobný (1921-2001), who won Wimbledon in 1954 (representing Egypt).

Number 2, U zlaté hvězdy (The Golden Star) was lived in by director Karel Kachyňa (1924-2004), most famous for 1970’s Ucho (The Ear), not released until 1989 due to its criticism of the Communist regime.

Number 4, U zlatého žaludu (The Golden Acorn) was lived in by Rudolf Friml (1879-1972), best known for moving to the US and composing the operettas Rose-Marie and The Vagabond King.

Number 10, U raka, named after the nearby stream’s considerable crab population, was inhabited by renowned author Arnošt Lustig (1926-2011) and the writer and journalist Ota Pavel (1930-73). Both are buried in Žižkov’s New Jewish Cemetery (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2022/11/28/prague-3-day-99-izraelska/).

Number 19, U Zlatého beránka (The Golden Lamb), used to be the workshop of performance artist, sculptor and dissident Milan Knížák, who was also the director of the Czech National Gallery from 1999 to 2011: https://www.milanknizak.com/.

Number 96/6 was lived in and used as a workshop by modernist painter Jan Zrzavý (1890-1977).

And number 25, U Zlatého pluhu (The Golden Plow) was lived in by violinist Jan Ondříček (1832-1900) and his son František Ondříček (1857-1922), an honorary member of London’s Royal Philharmonic Society (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/02/26/prague-3-day-148-ondrickova/).

Perhaps more famous than Nový Svět is Warsaw’s Nowy Świat, part of the historic route leading from the city’s Old Town.

Perhaps it’s also just the case that I was there a few weeks ago and would like to share this picture of it.