What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 25 September 2023. The southern, Prague 1 side doesn’t have a street sign.

Jan Dlabač was born in Cerhenice, near Kolín, in 1758. In 1771, he became a choirboy at Břevnov Monastery, then becoming head chorister at Strahov Monastery four years later.

After studying philosophy, mathematics and physics at Prague University, he joined the order of the Premonstratensians and adopted the name Bohumír.

He was ordained in 1785, and would spend the rest of his life living at Strahov, where, from 1786, he was also in charge of the library.

In 1780, Emperor Joseph II had issued the Edict on Idle Institutions, which outlawed monasteries which weren’t dealing with teaching, nursing or other practical work.

This would lead to multiple closures of monasteries in Bohemia and Moravia; Dlabač visited these institutions and collected drawings, musical works and other written articles.

By 1815, he’d collected enough materials to produce three volumes of the Allgemeine historisches Künstler-Lexikon für Böhmen und zum Theile auch für Mähren und Schlesien (General historical artist encyclopedia for Bohemia and partly also for Moravia and Silesia).

Dlabač died in 1820, aged 61; the manuscript of his lexicon – which remains a useful source for learning about Czech cultural life at the time – is still to be found at Strahov.

In ‘I’d never thought about name X being name Y, but now it’s incredibly obvious’ news, Bohumír, in German, is Gottfried.