What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on 6 April 2024.

‘Kůže’ means skin, but also leather. There are two modern-day adjectives derived from this: kožní and kožený. ‘Kožná’ is the feminine form of… well, neither, actually.

Anyway, in the 18th century, number 8 in the street was a kožnice, i.e. a warehouse and shop for leather goods. Indeed, from about 1800 until 1870, the street was called U kožnice.

I know there’s always the risk of something like that Spanish woman who restored that painting happening, but my goodness, this graffiti. Surely number 8 deserves a bit of vigilante justice.

Even if it’s just to honour Artúr Görgei (1818-1916), one of the leading lights of the Hungarian Revolutionary Army, who studied chemistry at Charles University from 1845 to 1848 and lived here.

Before its leather era, Kožná was known as U zlatého medvěda (The Golden Bear), after number 1 in the street, which is actually called U Dvou zlatých medvědů (the *two* golden bears).

Currently owned by the Museum of the Capital City of Prague, it was, in 1885, the birthplace of Egon Kisch, a legendary reporter, best known for his travels across the world (he was known as Der rasende Reporter – the Furious Reporter), his communism and his hatred of Nazism.

Kisch previously got a mention on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/23/prague-1-day-139-panska/, and there will be more (especially when I get to the street named after him in Prague 4 / Nusle, which is likely to happen before the end of this year).