What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 19 March 2024.

In modern Czech, a ‘kotec’ is a hutch, as in a cage for keeping a rabbit or another small animal.

In modern Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, a ‘katec’ is a pigsty – literally or figuratively – and, in Albanian, ‘katec’ can mean both these things, but also a grain basket.

Back in the Middle Ages, and back in Prague, though, ‘kotce’ meant the market stalls which were round here (see yesterday’s https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/10/08/prague-1-day-175-havelska/).

The ‘kotce’ were located in a 200-metre long corridor in the middle of the market.

In 1739, the Municipality of Prague inaugurated a theatre in the corridor and called it Divadlo v Kotcích, or, in German (the main language of its repertoire), Theater an der Kotzen.

Which is mildly amusing if you know that ‘kotzen’ is also German for ‘to puke’.

The theatre was the first stone theatre in Prague (which was just as well, given the wooden ones had a habit of burning down).

As well as its German repertoire, many Italian-language operas were also performed.

The number of Czech pieces ever performed here? One.

The theatre existed until 1793, when the grander Stavovské divadlo / Estates Theatre was opened nearby (so nearby that it’s coming up in three posts’ time).

There are some wonderful pictures of Divadlo v Kotcích – including this one, published in a 1992 book about the theatre by František Černý – on https://www.theatre-architecture.eu/cs/internetove-muzeum/?theatreId=970.

The ‘corridor’ which the theatre had been housed in was demolished shortly afterwards, in 1795, and the street would come into being early in the next century.