What's in a Prague street name

Tilschové was built in 1962.

Anna Maria Tilschová was born in Prague in 1873. Her father was a doctor of law; her mother was the daughter of Ferdinand Urbánek (1812-87), a sugar entrepreneur and organiser of cultural life in Bohemia and Moravia.

In 1895, Anna Maria married her cousin, Emanuel Tilsch, also a lawyer; they had two children. Anna Maria worked as a writer, with several novels published from 1905 onwards.

In 1912, Emanuel jumped from the second floor of a house in Opletalova (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/18/prague-1-day-125-opletalova/).

He was taken to hospital, but died a few hours later. His suicide would greatly influence his widow’s further works, which also conveyed disintegration of family relationships in bourgeois Prague society and the feeling of emptiness felt by so many of this group’s members.

Anna Maria’s masterpiece was Haldy (Heaps; 1927), which focused on life in Ostrava during the Great War. In 1947, she was awarded the title of National Artist.

Tilschová died in 1957, and is buried at Olšany Cemetery.