What's in a Prague street name

Machovcova was built in 1935.

Until 1952, the street was called Pod myslivnou II, after a myslivna (gamekeeper’s lodge).

As with yesterday, we’re spending some time in Jiráskova čtvrť, and so this is another street named after a character from a novel by Alois Jirásek (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/01/prague-2-day-154-jiraskovo-namesti/).

This time, the novel is called Temno (Darkness), and it was published in 1915.

The novel itself starts with the coronation of Charles VI in 1723 (so, just over a hundred years after the Battle of Bílá Hora), and ends in 1729, with the canonisation of Jan Nepomucký. The title represents the state that the Czech nation found itself to be in at the time.

Much of the action is set in an estate called Skalka, where the inhabitants include a hunter called Machovec. He has two children, Helenka and Tomáš, who are close to Lhotský, the chief administrator of the estate.

However, Machovec doesn’t get on with the local administrator, Čermák, who happily reports him and the kids to the authorities for not having converted to Catholicism. Machovec escapes, but can’t take Helenka and Tomáš with him.

Considered heretics, they are expelled from the lodge and are eventually sold into serfdom for a brewer, Březina.

Although Machovec manages to get Tomáš to escape and join him abroad, Helenka has fallen in love with one of Březina’s relatives and starts to lean towards Catholicism.

Eventually, she realises they will never be happy together, and, when her love is revealed, she is banished, eventually managing to flee to join her family.

Temno was a huge success, especially with Czech soldiers fighting on the front lines in World War I; the first edition sold out within three weeks, and, by November 1918, the novel was already on its sixth edition.

Temno was made into a film in 1950, although it was inevitably adapted to suit the Communist ideology.