What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 23 April 2024.

Žatec is a town of approximately 19,000 inhabitants in the Ústí Region, named after a hillfort which existed there in the early 10th century.

It was an important city in Hussite times – when preachers predicted that it was one of five cities which would survive the final destruction of the world – and survived a month-long siege during the Second Crusade to Bohemia in 1421.

It also played its role two hundred years later – its former mayor, Maxmilián Hošťálek z Javořice, was one of the 27 rebels executed on Old Town Square in June 1621.

As one of the biggest cities in Bohemia at the time, it also had a good deal of money, and used part of this to buy what is now number 4 on the street, owning the house from 1615 to 1641 and giving the street its name.

After the Thirty Years’ War, though, Žatec started to decline, and also became predominantly German-speaking (its German name is Saaz); having been the regional capital for centuries, it was demoted to district town in 1850.

This is Žatec as depicted by Václav Hollar (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/02/28/prague-3-day-163-hollarovo-namesti/).

The 18th and 19th centuries also saw the growth of brewing and hop cultivation in the city (Pivovar Žatec still exists), and, during the Industrial Revolution, a major cardboard and paper box factory was opened here.

Some more pictures of Žatec, industrialisation-style, credited to Josef Wara (1863-1937).

And some non-industrial ones.

In May and June 1945, 5,000 German inhabitants of the town were marched from the town square to Postoloprty, where about 800 were shot. Even in a time of extreme brutality, it remains the largest known massacre of Germans living in Bohemia after WW2.

In 1960, Žatec lost its status as district town to Louny. As with much of Czechoslovakia under communism, housing estates were constructed and historical parts fell into disrepair.

However, restoration is now gradually taking place, and, in 2023, Žatec and its hop-based surroundings were placed on the UNESCO world cultural heritage list: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1558/.

And, in April 2024, Žatec was named Historical Town of the Year.

The person you are most likely to have heard of from Žatec is film director Jan Svěrák, born here in 1965:

And you may also have seen Žatec without realising it, for example if you saw Yentl around 1983: https://filmap.tumblr.com/post/183585506716/yentl-barbra-streisand-1983-hadasss-house.

Or, more recently, JoJo Rabbit: https://english.radio.cz/zatec-czech-town-providing-perfect-location-major-productions-including-jojo-8106955.

Back in Prague, number 1 on Žatecká features one side of the National Library – the side which includes the entrance to the National Marionette Theatre and the Kingdom of Puppets, an amateur theatre founded in 1920. The entrance is charming.

As is the plaque of UNIMA, Union Internationale de la Marionnette / International Puppetry Association, founded here in 1929.

Number 4 – not the original building bought by the city of Žatec, but standing in its spot – has some pretty interesting things going on on its façade too.