What's in a Prague street name

Štětkova was built in 1898.

Until 1940, and again from 1945 to 1948, the street was called Horymírova, and you can learn a thing or two about Horymír on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/01/29/prague-4-day-7-kresomyslova/.

Then, from 1948 to 1952, it was called Mikešova, after Mikeš Divůček z Jemniště, a mintmaster from Kutná Hora who was good friends with Jan Hus.

Antonín Štětka was born in Strakonice in 1904. A communist, he joined the ‘Association of Friends of the USSR’ in 1936.

In 1941, he was recruited by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (which was operating illegally at the time), seeing to it that families of political prisoners received financial support. He was also assigned to be in command of the party’s cell in Pankrác.

Shortly afterwards, he was arrested; in July 1942, a People’s Court sentenced him to death for high treason.

He was executed at Plötzensee Prison, in Charlottenburg-Nord, Berlin, on 5 November 1942, one of 677 Czechoslovaks who would be murdered there during the war.