Šimon Lomnický was born into a poor family in Lomnice nad Lužnicí in 1552, but, thanks to Vilém z Rožmberka, a noble and one-time treasurer of Bohemia, he was able to have an education.
He wrote a series of books about the seven deadly sins and their moral impact, including volumes with fun titles like Knížka o sedmi hrozných ďábelských řetězích (A Booklet on the Seven Terrible Devil’s Chains).
Or Traktát o tanci (A Treatise on Dancing – apparently one of the mortal sins).
Or Tobolka zlatá (The Golden Capsule; apparently against greed and usury, although Lomnický was allegedly quite partial to a bit of the latter).
Or Pejcha života (The Scourge of Life; a work criticising pride with a small p, and goodness know what he’d have had to say about Pride with a capital P).
His most famous work was Kupidova střela (Cupid’s Arrow), a collection of works on why people fornicate and how you can avoid fornicating (admitting to writing books like this probably being a good first step).
Having had his property burnt down in 1619 by Habsburg troops, Lomnický apparently converted from Catholicism to Hussitism, back to Catholicism again, before dying in 1623, penniless.
A map of Nusle from 1914 indicates that, by that time, it was gone.
I got excited a minute ago, because I thought I’d found a lot more information about Klikovka… but then that Klikovka turned out to have been in Smíchov.
So that’s getting saved for What’s in a Prague 5 Street Name.
It was initially called Krušinova, after Hynek Krušina z Lichtenburka, a noble who first fought on the Hussite side in the 1400s, then on the side of the Catholics.
Having been lengthened by taking over another street in the 1930s, the street has had its present name since 1948.
After his military service in Košice, he returned to Prague, took a job at the Czech Commercial Bank, and joined the Communist Party.
In the early 1930s, Sinkule became a researcher at what is now the Prague University of Economics and Business (VŠE), and started to work as a journalist. He also ran for election to the National Assembly.
Sinkule eventually became editor of Rudé právo, the Communists’ official newspaper, and travelled to Spain to report on the Civil War there.
When the Nazis occupied the Czech Lands in 1939, Sinkule started clandestine work for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, especially in South Moravia.
The Gestapo arrested him in February 1941 in Pankrác. After a stint in Terezín, he was sent back to Pankrác later in the year, but, in March 1942, he was transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp.
He was executed there on 20 April 1942, aged 37.
A dormitory of VŠE in Dejvice is also named after him.
She was also a member of the Czech National Socialist Party, which, despite its somewhat familiar name, was located on the centre-left of the political spectrum.
Cibulková lived on Sinkulova in Nusle – coming up tomorrow – and, when World War Two broke out, she arranged shelter for participants in the anti-Nazi resistance (and their weapons).
Mikuláš z Pístného was born around 1375, and the earliest written reference we have to him is from 1389.
In 1406, King Václav/Wenceslas IV made him hereditary burgrave of Hus Castle, hence the change in name.
A supporter of communion under both kinds – ie the reception of the Eucharist via both consecreated bread and wine – he asked Václav to allow it in 1419. Václav freaked out and ordered Mikuláš out of Prague.
However, Mikuláš then managed to organise large meetings in the mountains and began to plan military resistance to the regime.
Mikuláš asked the alderman of Prague to allow the gates of Prague to be guarded by the people of both Prague and Tábor; they refused. Mikuláš decided it was time to leave Prague.
However, while departing, he fell from his horse while crossing the Botič (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/26/prague-2-day-115-boticska/), and died in December 1420. His unexpected death reduced the number of power struggles that Jan Žižka would need to endure to lead the Taborites.
U Jedličkova ústavu was built in the 1930s, but not named until 1957.
Rudolf Jedlička was born in Lysá nad Labem in 1869; his father had previously served as a doctor in present-day Slovenia, and his mother was the daughter of a mayor of Vyšehrad.
He studied medicine in Prague, graduating in 1895, which was also the year in which Wilhelm Röntgen invented the X-ray. In 1896, Jedlička became the first doctor in the Habsburg Empire to perform X-ray examinations.
He was also the first doctor in Bohemia to start using radium.
However, Jedlička suffered from career setbacks – an application to become chief physician in Olomouc was turned down, probably for political reasons, and, unexpectedly, he wasn’t asked to take over the clinic he worked at in Prague when its founder died.
Disillusioned, Jedlička started working at the Prague University Polyclinic instead, but physical problems also came into play: his previous exposure to radiation caused him to lose several of his fingers.
After a research trip to Rochester, Minnesota in 1908, Jedlička bought land in Podolí in 1909, and had a sanatorium built. It started accepting patients in 1914.
Also, in 1911, Jedlička became chairman of an association which aimed to build an association for disabled children. A year later, Jedlička took out a loan to buy a plot of land in Vyšehrad.
In 1912, the First Balkan War broke out; Jedlička funded an expedition of doctors who went to the Balkans. He personally operated on up to forty patients a day and received the Order of Saint Sava from King Petar I of Serbia.
Returning to Prague in early 1913, Jedlička got on with setting up the institute for disabled children which bears his name, and has given its name to the street.
Jedlička wanted to go to Serbia again when World War One broke out, but the Austro-Hungarian authorities, who sided with Bulgaria, forbade this, and, instead, he was called up to serve the Fifth Army in Bijeljina, Bosnia.
Jedlička managed to get called back after a month, largely thanks to the intervention of friends who persuaded the authorities that he was needed back in Prague, and continued his military service, but from Bohemia.
In 1925, he was finally asked to become head of the clinic that he had left a couple of decades earlier, but turned this down due to being extremely busy with other things – and feeling less well than he had previously.
Josef Ignác Franz Buček was born in Příbor, then known as Freiberg, in 1741. He studied philosophy in Olomouc and Vienna, later becoming a professor of economic sciences at the University of Prague.
Around the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, he built a farmstead round here, with an extensive orchard, and called it Bučanka.
Buček died in 1821; later owners of the farmstead included one Václav Bělský, a mayor who purchased it in 1853 and built a villa on it called Bělka.
Pankrácké náměstí (Pankrác Square) was built in 1931. I walked around – a lot – and couldn’t find a street sign, so here’s a picture of the square instead. Not Prague’s most beautiful.
However, when it was first built, Pankrácké náměstí included a small stadium, Na Bělce, which belonged to a football club, SK Nusle. They still exist, and currently play in regional competitions: https://sknusle.cz/o-klubu/.
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.
U gymnázia was built in the 1930s, and given a name in 1947.
A ‘gymnázium’ is a well-known false friend: it’s a grammar school (if you’re British), or a high school (if you’re American). Around the spring of each year, your local friends who have kids may talk about how insanely competitive their entry examinations are.
In 1948, such a school opened here; it was created for children of employees of diplomatic missions from other Eastern European countries (read: Communists), and focused on the teaching of languages.
As if we couldn’t already guess where the majority of these students came from, the street was originally called ‘U ruského gymnázia’ until 1948, then being known as ‘U sovětské školy’ (By the Soviet School) until 1991.
Meanwhile, the Soviet School moved to Bubeneč, where the Russian Embassy is, apparently at the expense of some quite nice older buildings.
Since 2021, when Czechia expelled Russian diplomats due to Russian military involvement in the 2014 Vrbětice ammunition warehouse explosions, (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56790053), the school in Bubeneč has been empty. It’s hard to imagine this changing.
Viktorín Boček z Kunštátu was a nobleman; the earliest written mention we have of him is from 1417. When the Hussite Wars broke out two years later, he became one of the most important Hussite commanders.
However, this refuge didn’t last long – in 1421, he returned to Prague and became the city’s military governor. He also participated in military campaigns in Moravia with his brother, Hynek.
After participating in multiple battles – most notably that of Ústí nad Labem in 1426 – Viktorín died at Pardubice Castle in the opening days of 1427, probably still only in his early twenties.
Bohuslav (the sixth) was the son of Bohuslav (the fifth), who was the highest judge in Bohemia from 1390 to 1398. The Švamberks were a noble Catholic family.
A key feature of these clashes is that Žižka would win time and again. During a further campaign of Žižka’s in 1421 – when the castle Bohuslav was residing in was about to be attacked – Bohuslav surrendered.
Upon Hvězda’s death in 1425, Bohuslav became chief hetman of Tábor. Despite further military victories in that year, he would die in November or December due to facial injuries sustained in a battle.
While Bohuslav probably had two sons, Bušek and Jan, this isn’t verified, nor do we have any details about his wife.
Until 1952, the street was named after Diviš Bořek z Miletínka, another Hussite hetman.
Louny and Žatec were two of the five towns that it was predicted would survive the apocalypse. HK was not – but all three are still there. So that’s nice.
However, within two days, Prague was liberated from Nazi rule, and, in September 1945, Josef Pfitzner, who had been installed as Deputy Mayor of Prague in 1939, was executed on the square. This would be the last public execution in the city.
In 1947, the square was renamed Náměstí Hrdinů – Heroes’ Square – in honour of those people who had resisted Nazi rule, but paid for this by being locked up – or murdered – at Pankrác Prison.
In August 1968, when Warsaw Pact troops invaded Prague, 54 of their tanks occupied the square, effectively cutting Nusle off from the rest of the city for several days.
Sevřená was built in 1933, but not given a name until 1957.
‘Sevřít’ means to clench (something), to press (two things) together, to clamp, squeeze, etc.
To ‘sevřít’ [insert name here] ‘v náručí’ is to take them in your arms; to ‘sevřít’ (something) ‘pevněji’ is to tighten your grip on it.
The street, meanwhile, located between two long main roads, is surrounded by houses (if you’re being neutral), or is hemmed in, or constricted, by them (if you’re a bit cup-half-empty).
Back in vocab territory ‘Mám sevřený žaludek’ means ‘My stomach is in knots’, while, if you have ‘sevřené rty’, your lips are sealed.
I feel like some music (both versions included because I didn’t want to choose).
Even as an ex-Londoner who used to travel to Brussels an awful lot, it somehow took me until 2024 to put two and two together and work out that Pankrác is St Pancras.
Pancras of Rome converted to Christianity, and was beheaded for this around 303, aged just fourteen.
A church dedicated to him (under which archaeologists later discovered the remains of a rotunda) was the church of a village called Krušina. Krušina later disappeared, and the area was renamed Pankrác.
The church – initially Romanesque, later Gothic – was destroyed during the Swedish siege of Prague in 1648, and its restored version was plundered by Prussian forces in 1757.
The church ceased to serve its original function in 1773, being used as a powder store until 1818, but, around 1900, it was reconsecrated.
Say Pankrác to most people, though, and the first thing they’ll think of is the prison of the same name – I’m leaving that for an upcoming post, though.
People may also think of the metro station, but there’s not very much doing there right now.
So you might end going shopping instead at Arkády Pankrác. I lived near-ish here in 2007, and was wondering how on earth I’d spent 2007 without realising it existed (but being certain an older shopping centre did). Turns out it was opened in… 2008, by which time I was gone.
Step back a little further – around here-ish – and you might not realise that you’re standing on/near what was Prague’s first ever bus station.
Pankrác Bus Station opened in 1947, and ran until 1986, when it was closed for two years for renovations. The renovations mainly happened; the reopening never did.
Here’s some great footage of the bus station in 1971 – I think it’s from the children’s television series Pan Tau.
What's in a Prague street name 