What's in a Prague street name

Petra Rezka was built in 1931.

Until 1948, the street was named Leflova, after Jindřich Lefl z Lažan, a Polish-Czech nobleman who initially supported Jan Hus, and gave him a place to hide, but later changed sides and was killed by the Hussites at the Battle of Vyšehrad (more on that in two days’ time).

Then, from 1948 to 1952, it was named Mašínova, after Josef Mašín, an army officer and member of the Czech anti-Nazi resistance. He was shot in 1942, a retaliatory measure following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. More on Mašín when we get to Prague 8.

Doing something of a 180 now, there’s a Czech singer called Petr Rezek. Here he is giving his all to a Czech cover version of Y.M.C.A.

And Everybody’s Talkin’.

And Centerfold.

Sadly (and predictably), this street isn’t named after him, and we have to go back to the early 1400s to learn about The Other Petr Rezek.

It’ll help if we recall Jan Želivský (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2022/11/19/prague-3-day-23-jana-zelivskeho/), a Hussite priest who, in 1419, stormed the Town Hall in Prague’s New Town, indirectly causing the death of the King and directly kicking off the Hussite Wars.

Želivský fought in these wars until 1421, when he was removed from his position, and, a year later, he was arrested by Prague’s town council and was beheaded.

The relevance of this? The authorities also executed some of Želivský’s followers, one of whom was this Petr Rezek guy, although we don’t know that much about him otherwise.

Back to the street, I was struck by this plaque on one its houses, and wanted to know more.

It translates as ‘I liked being here. Tomáš Holý, 17.03.1968-08.03.1990’.

In 1976, director Oldřich Lipský had a problem – he was filming a comedy called Marečku, podejte mi pero! (Marecek, Pass Me the Pen!), and a child actor he was using had fallen ill. A man working in the prop department suggested his seven-year-old nephew, Tomáš, as a replacement.

Young Tomáš turned out to be a natural: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE4xjEkdi88.

So much so that Lipský cast him again in a children’s film, 1977’s Ať žijí duchové! (Long Live Ghosts!). In the same year, he starred in Jak vytrhnout velrybě stoličku (How to pull a whale’s stool out), directed by Marie Poledňáková.

He became famous outside of Czechoslovakia in 1981, when he starred in the Austrian-West German-Swiss-Czechoslovakian science fiction television series Unterwegs nach Atlantis (On the Way to Atlantis).

However, Tomáš decided around that time that acting wasn’t for him. The reasons aren’t entirely clear, but, in one interview around 1980, he said that he didn’t like the idea of becoming a failed actor.

After finishing school, Tomáš began to study law, and entered into a relationship with an up-and-coming singer, Lucie Bílá. Tragically, however, he was killed in a car accident in Kytlice in 1990, aged just 21.

The plaque was unveiled in 2021, on the front of the house where he had spent most of his life.