What's in a Prague street name

Vavřenova was built in 1968.

In 1878, Alois Jirásek (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/01/prague-2-day-154-jiraskovo-namesti/) published a novel called Filosofská historie (Philosophical History).

It’s set in Litomyšl, where Jirásek was living and working as a teacher at the time, and a key theme is the use of Czech and German in everyday life.

Tellingly, it is set in 1847 (the novel starts with the banning of a student festival for May Day) and 1848, when rebellion erupted in Prague.

The students in the novel have a real love for their mother tongue, and read classic Czech literature, and yet, when they’re in public, they often end up choosing to speak German instead.

The principal male character in the novel is called Vavřena (hence the street name). He’s a serious, kind and gentle student who goes to teach in a family (the Roubíneks), and falls in love with their daughter, Lenka.

He admits his love for her during the May Day festival, which the students went through with despite the ban, displeasing the authorities.

In 1848, he goes to Prague to join the uprising; at the end of the novel, he marries Lenka and becomes a doctor.

Filosofská historie was made into a film in 1937, directed by Otakar Vávra.

A musical based on the novel also ran at the Rokoko Theatre (mentioned someway down on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/17/prague-1-day-123-vaclavske-namesti/) from 1968 to 1969, with music by Zdeněk Petr and lyrics by Ivo Fischer.

It had what you can only describe as one heck of a cast: Václav Neckář, Marta Kubišová, Helena Vondráčková, Waldemar Matuška, and Jiří Štědry. Coincidentally (or not?), it opened in the same year that this street first did.