What's in a Prague street name

U Slovanské Pojišťovny was built in 1934.

In 1920, Viktor Rašín, a financier and economist, founded Slovanská pojišťovna a záložna (Slavic Insurance and Savings Bank). Its headquarters were at 66 Wenceslas Square (sadly not one of the many buildings covered on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/17/prague-1-day-123-vaclavske-namesti/).

The Rašíns were quite high-profile in the early days of Czechoslovakia: Viktor’s brother, Aloiš, eleven years younger, had been the country’s first Minister of Finance from 1918 to 1919.

Neither would be around much longer: Viktor died in January 1921; Aloiš, having become Finance Minister again in 1922, was assassinated in 1923 (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/28/prague-2-day-125-rasinovo-nabrezi/).

The insurance company was taken over by Viktor’s son, Jaromír; by 1928, it was the second-biggest insurance company in Czechslovakia.

Jaromír, a man of many interests (including book collecting and beekeeping), also tried to establish himself as a writer, without major success.

Despite its name, 80% of the company’s shares were owned by a German insurance company; in the 1930s, this stake would be taken over by a Nazi insurance company.

Soon after the Munich Agreement – giving the Nazis the green light to annex the Sudetenland – was signed in 1938, Rašín emigrated to Yugoslavia, dying at his home on the island of Hvar in 1951.

The street name gives the impression that this is street is next to Slovanská pojišťovna’s office, which it quite clearly isn’t. It does, however, consist of homes built by the company for its employees.

There’s a quite wonderful set of documents relating to the company on https://www.muzeumpojisteni.cz/?artwork-artists=slovanska.