Bernard Augustin Zahořanský was born in 1738, into a family which had originated in the town of Záhořany, becoming ennobled in 1600 and settling in Prague’s New Town three years later.
He graduated in law and, in 1763, became a councillor at the supreme provincial criminal court.
In 1784, Emperor Joseph II united the Old Town, the New Town, the Lesser Town and Hradčany into one city. This also meant that, where there had previously been four city councils, there would now be one.
An Imperial Decree declared that Zahořanský would be the first mayor, or purkmistr, holding the position for a four-year term. According to municipal records, the city worked and met exclusively in German.
Zahořanský didn’t take the option of running for mayor again in 1788, instead returning to his previous job. He died two years later, in 1790.
The house in which he lived with his wife, Johanna Gosková, is located where the street is now. Zahořany, meanwhile, is now located in Prague-West and has about 300 inhabitants.
The name Náplavka appeared in the 19th century, after which Náplavní came into being.
Náplavka is, to most of us, ‘that place along the Vltava with all the bars and stuff’, but it really just translates as ‘embankment’.
What differentiates it from a nábřeží – also translated as ‘embankment’ – is that it’s lower.
A náplavka can be used for landing and mooring ships, but also, as many of us know, for getting rather merry at a beer festival or attending a farmer’s market.
The word is a diminutive of náplava, meaning alluvium, i.e. the sediment that’s deposited along the banks of the river.
Masarykovo nábřeží (Masaryk Embankment) has existed in its current form since 1903.
From 1903 to 1912, this was Františkovo nábřeží, after Francis II, who ruled Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia from 1792 to 1835.
Then, from 1912 to 1940 (and again from 1945 to 1946), it was Riegrovo nábřeží, after František Ladislav Rieger (1818-1903), politician, publicist, and early leader of the Czech nationalist movement.
The Nazis renamed it Vltavské nábřeží, before making us all feel a bit sick by renaming it Reinhard-Heydrich-Ufer.
The Communists made us feel less sick, but still sick, by calling it Gottwaldovo nábřeží (after Klement Gottwald (1896-1953), first Communist leader of Czechoslovakia), which stuck until 1990.
Tomáš Jan Masaryk was born to a poor family in Hodonín, South Moravia, in 1850. He attended the gymnasium in Brno, then finishing his schooling in Vienna in 1872.
The relatively late age at which he finished school was due to his parents’ inability to support his studies financially, as well as an interruption caused by the Prussian-Austrian War in 1866.
Staying in Vienna, he studied philosophy, then continuing his studies in Leipzig, where he met an American lady who was visiting one of his friends. Her name was Charlotte Garrigue; they married in New York in 1878 and he took her surname in addition to his own.
In 1882, just after Charles-Ferdinand University had been split into Czech and German sections, they moved to Prague, where Masaryk became professor of philosophy.
His rationalism, broad outlook on life, and willingness to criticise the church meant that he clashed with several conservative nationalists – but also made him popular with students.
In 1883, he founded Athenaeum, a magazine devoted to Czech work in science.
Differences of opinion between Masaryk, the owner of the villa, Václav Vlček, and others, on the famous Manuscripts, eventually meant the Masaryks had to move out in 1889.
In 1891, Masaryk was elected to the Imperial Council in Vienna, as a Member of the Young Czechs, staying in this position until his departure in 1893, following disputes with more radical members of the party.
In 1899, Masaryk spoke out in favour of Leopold Hilsner, a Jewish man accused of the murder of two young women (the prosecution stated that these were ritual murders so that the Jews could use the blood of young Christians in their own ceremonies).
Hilsner would spend 19 years in prison before being pardoned in 1919.
In 1900, Masaryk founded the Czech People’s Party, later known as the Realist Party / Realistická strana, serving as their representative in the Imperial Council from 1907 to 1914. At this time, he still believed that Austro-Hungary was reformable as a federation.
When WW1 broke out, he changed his mind, deciding that an independent Czechoslovakia was necessary. He went into exile in late 1914, as there was a warrant for his arrest back home, and worked hard to get foreign leaders on side.
In 1916, the Czechoslovak National Council was founded in Paris, and Masaryk became its chairman. This picture is not of the founding, but was taken in Paris.
After the February Revolution in 1917, he went to Russia to set up the Czechoslovak Legion (which eventually numbered 50,000) to fight against the Austrians.
Masaryk was still in the States on 28 October, when Czechoslovakia was created and when he was elected President in absentia. He returned in December.
In 1919, Masaryk University, the second Czech-speaking university, was founded in Brno. Masaryk had proposed its creation to the Imperial Council back in 1891.
He would be reelected President three times (1920, 1927 and 1934), before abdicating due to ill health in 1935. Charlotte, meanwhile, died in 1923 following a stroke and heart problems.
While his power as President was limited, his presence gave Czechoslovak politics some sort of consistency, at a time when Czechoslovakia had 15 governments in 17 years.
Masaryk died in 1937 of “purulent bronchopneumonia of the right lower lobe of the lung and bilateral hypostasis of the lung”.
In his lifetime, he had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 17 times.
In 1997, San Francisco rock band Faith No More released an album called ‘Album of the Year’, with Masaryk on the cover. It was the last before their split in 1998 (they reformed in 2009).
During the Nazi occupation, it was renamed Dienzenhoferův most, after Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer (1689-1751), an architect whose works include the Kinský Palace on Old Town Square, St. Nicholas Church on Malá Strana and Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral on Resslova.
Quick bridge trivia, part 1: it used to have tram tracks across it until these were deemed unnecessary.
Quick bridge trivia, 2: it’s located in Prague 1, Prague 2 *and* Prague 5.
Quick bridge trivia, part 3: in order for the bridge to be built, a baroque pavilion on the Smíchov side had to be demolished.
Jiráskovo náměstí was built in 1905 as a result of modifications to the riverbank.
Until 1940, and again from 1945 to 1947, this was Riegrovo náměstí, after František Ladislav Rieger (1818-1903), politician, publicist, and early leader of the Czech nationalist movement.
Alois Jirásek was born in Hronov, near Náchod, in 1851. After completing his history studies in Prague in 1874, he moved to Litomyšl, where he stayed for fourteen years, teaching Czech and history at a grammar school. It was also here that he wrote his first important works.
The work that you’re most likely to know of his is Staré pověsti české / Ancient Bohemian Legends (1894). It contains several of the stories that have been summarised in previous threads.
Jirásek also wrote at least nine novels about the Hussites, including Mezi proudy (Between the currents, 1887-90), featuring all kinds of famous Jans: Hus, Žižka and z Jenštejna, and Proti všem (Against all, 1893), covering the founding of Tábor and the Battle of Vítkov.
Jumping forward 200 years, his novel Temno (The Dark) covers Czech oppression by the Habsburgs following the Battle of Bílá Hora. Written in 1913 to 1915, it became the most famous book in the Czech lands during WW1.
In May 1917, Jirásek was one of the key signatories of the Manifesto of Czech Writers, a public declaration in favour of Czech self-determination.
In December 1918, when Masaryk arrived at the main train station in what was now the capital of an independent Czechoslovakia, Jirásek made a speech: https://aloisjirasek.cz/o-vitani-tgm/.
Jirásek was also active in politics, being a senator for the right-wing Czechoslovak National Democracy from 1920 to 1925.
Jirásek died in Prague in 1930, and is buried in his native Hronov. I’m glad we weren’t alive at the same time, because I feel that he would’ve come up with the idea for What’s In a Prague [x] Street Name long before I did.
There’s a statue of Jirásek on the square itself, where the overall impression is somehow like a real-life Where’s Wally / Waldo / Valdík book where they didn’t have enough budget to get a few more people.
Until 1870, the street was known as U Hurta, Nad Hurtem, Hurtova or Hurtovská, all named after a building here (U Hurta) which hosted the municipal forge.
After attending grammar school in Linz, he joined the artillery school in České Budějovice in 1809, but was deemed not physically strong enough to become an officer.
He subsequently studied medicine in Vienna, but dropped out and studied forestry instead. Upon graduation, he became a forester in Istria (nowadays shared by Croatia and Slovenia – Slovenian commemorative plaque below) and, from 1821, Trieste.
In Trieste, he invented a ship propeller, for which he received an imperial patent in 1827.
It’s admittedly hard to talk of someone as being *the* inventor of the propeller, as others elsewhere came up with similar ideas independently, but Ressel was the first to have his design brought to technical maturity.
After getting the patent, he tested his invention on Civetta, a steamer in the port of Trieste, in 1829; however, the steam engine broke down and the police banned him from continuing with his experiments.
Back when the Austrian Schilling was a thing, Ressel and the Civetta were shown on the 500 Schilling note.
In 1840, Ressel’s ideas were incorporated into the British steamer “Archimedes”. The British government offered £20,000 to the inventor of the ship’s propeller, as long as they provided proof.
Ressel sent his proof to London, but was told that the documents got lost along the way. The prize was ultimately given to five Brits.
Ressel died of malaria while in Ljubljana in 1857. Posthumously, in 1866, the American Academy of Sciences in Washington acknowledged him as the inventor of the ship propeller.
Other Ressel inventions include a dye extraction method (1825), a manual cylinder press (1826), a hydraulic steam engine (1828), rolling bearings (also 1828), and a mixture of ingredients to help preserve leather goods (1854).
Until 1839, the street had various names. One of these was Na Lávkách (on the footbridges), so called because there was a footbridge leading from the Old Town to Podskalí along here.
The street is named after Kostel svatého Václava na Zderaze. Zderaz is a former settlement here, which we’ll discuss more in a few days’ time.
A church (of Peter and Paul) was mentioned here in 1115, but this was destroyed and had to be replaced. A report from 1278 talks about the consecration of the new church having taken place in 1181, with the church being adjoined to the adjacent monastery.
A new, Gothic church was built in the late 14th century, following the founding of the Old Town. Inevitably, the church’s monastery was burned down by the Hussites, who took control of the church itself.
It was then restored, and, in 1586, Emperor Rudolph II invested in further reconstruction. After the Battle of Bílá Hora, Emperor Ferdinand II would invest in a new monastery, inhabited by the Order of Discalced Augustinians.
The church had to be repaired yet again after the Thirty Years’ War, as the Swedes had sent cannonballs in its direction in 1646.
In 1785, as part of Joseph II’s reforms, the monastery was deconsecrated and turned into a prison. The church served the prison’s needs until 1884, when the latter was moved to Pankrác.
The monastery was destroyed in 1904, but the church survived, and had its most significant reconstruction in the 1920s after being purchased by the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. It was reconsecrated in 1929.
Pavel z Jenštejna was born… somewhere, in the first half of the 14th century.
From 1351 to 1374, i.e. during Karel IV’s reign, he was the royal chamber’s notary and the King’s bookkeeper. Karel’s writings referred to him as Paulo de Praga.
He owned several properties in Prague, including one on Zderaz (nearby, and coming up in one of the next few threads).
Outside of Prague, he also purchased the castle at Jenštejn in 1368 – hence the family name.
Pavel died in Prague in 1375. His son Jan, following in his father’s footsteps, would become Chancellor to Václav IV, but quit the role in 1384 due to disagreements on religious issues.
Jan was also archbishop of Prague from 1379 until his conflicts with the King forced him to resign in 1396. In addition, he wrote poetry and composed musical pieces.
He died in poverty in Rome in 1400. He had also lost the castle, perhaps as early as 1390, while the family would die out in the 1500s.
František Dittrich was born in Podskalí – i.e. here – in 1801. Being deprived of both parents and his inheritance at an early age, he started to work as a raft swimmer on the Vltava, ultimately making enough money to open a shop and an inn.
On 11 March 1848, the radical association Repeal (which included both Czech and German-speakers) held an unauthorised protest meeting at Svatováclavské lázně / St Wenceslas Baths, where Dittrichova is located now.
Having found out via secret pamphlets that revolution was happening elsewhere in Europe, the group requested civic freedom, abolition of censorship, and language equality.
The St. Wenceslas Committee (later National Committee / Národní výbor), organised as a result of the meeting, prepared a petition – which rather fell by the wayside when Vienna itself exploded with revolutionary activity two days later.
Dittrich was one of the participants in the meeting and the Committee, and was also elected to Prague’s municipal council around the same time.
When hopes for greater Czech autonomy were dashed, Dittrich would withdraw from politics until 1859, and became deputy to the Mayor of Prague in 1863. His work focused on improving conditions in the local hospital (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/31/prague-2-day-138-u-nemocnice/) and almshouse.
He was also instrumental in launching successful steam transport across the Vltava.
In 1870, he was elected mayor. In his three-year tenure, he oversaw construction of the Main Train Station, and, in 1871, conducted the city’s first civil marriage.
Dittrich died in 1875, and is buried in Olšany Cemetery.
Anyone looking for remnants of the baths on Dittrichova now will be disappointed. And the only commemorative plaque is behind what was, on the day I visited, a closed door.
The buildings where the baths once were now look like this.
The one that you can’t take your eyes off – if you’re like me – was created by architect Karel Lupíšek in 1928 as the Pension Institute of Employees of Health Insurance Companies in Czechoslovakia. Its four statues represent different professions.
Matěj Pavlík was born in Hrubá Vrbka, near Hodonín, in 1879, and attended the Faculty of Theology in Olomouc from 1898 to 1902, after which he was ordained.
During these studies, he took a particular interest in Cyril, Methodius and Eastern Orthodoxy, taking a trip to Kyiv in 1900 to learn more and make connections with the clergy there.
He then performed priestly duties in several locations, including Kroměříž, where he worked at the church of St Cyril and Methodius at the town’s mental institution.
He drafted a reform programme for the Catholic clergy, which was soundly rejected by Rome; he would end up being excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1920.
In 1921, he joined the Serbian Orthodox Church. He was consecrated in Belgrade as Bishop of Moravia and Silesia in the same year, taking the name of Gorazd (the Slavic form of ‘Gilead’), who had succeeded Methodius as Bishop of Moravia in 885.
After a trip to the US in 1922 to spread Orthodoxy among Czech immigrants, he returned to Czechoslovakia in 1924, where fourteen Orthodox places of worship would be built under his supervision between 1928 and 1942.
On 27 May 1942, Czech resistance members carried out an assassination attempt on Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, who would die of his injuries on 4 June.
Gorazd only found out about this on 10 June, and urged that the paratroopers be transferred; they were found by the Nazis on the 18th. All those hiding in the crypt were either killed or committed suicide.
Gorazd was arrested on 27 June; on 4 September, he was shot at the Kobylisy shooting range.
The Church would be dissolved in the same month, its property was confiscated, and twelve further representatives of the church in Prague 2 were executed.
Gorazd would be awarded the Czechoslovak War Cross posthumously in 1945, and was canonised in Olomouc in 1987.
Trojanova replaced a smaller street called ‘Kočičí’ when the district was given a major facelift in the late 19th century.
Kočičí translate as ‘feline’ or ‘cat-like’, which is therefore the best street name ever, and, no offence to Mr Trojan or anyone, but I’m sad not to be writing about that today.
Alois Pravoslav Trojan was born in Knovíz (near Kladno) in 1815, and studied law at Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague.
This eventually led him to a job at the royal court prosecutor’s office in Prague.
In 1845, he was one of the founders of Prague’s Měšťanská beseda (Citizens’ cultural association, intended to act as a counterpart to its German-speaking equivalent). Within a year, it had over 500 members.
He was one of the main organisers of the meeting at St Wenceslas Spa / Svatováclavské lázně on 11 March 1848 (which I’ll write a whole lot more about in Sunday’s thread).
It was he who presented the draft of the petition which demanded constitutional and legal freedoms for the Czech lands; he also travelled to Vienna to plead the committee’s case.
In June, he was a key participant in the Slavic Congress, and also entered the Austrian Constituent Assembly as a result of the 1848 elections.
His involvement in revolutionary activities would lead to his arrest in 1849, and, while he was freed soon after, he also ceased to be politically active until 1861, when he was elected to the Czech Provincial Assembly.
This was followed by his election to the Imperial Council on four occasions (the first in 1867), but, like his fellow Czechs, he didn’t attend sessions, as the Czech policy was one of passive resistance against Austria’s increasing centralisation.
The Czech side would change tactics in 1879, and started attending sessions of the Imperial Council. Trojan became leader of the Czech coalition in 1880.
Trojan would sit in the Imperial Council until his death in 1893; he’s buried at Vyšehrad.
Outside of his political activity, he was known for promoting the Czech language, advocating for the division of Charles-Ferdinand University into Czech and German parts, and for being an executive on the board for construction of the National Theatre.
Well, sort of – the rituals around her were written down in the 15th century, but there’s no evidence that the pre-Christians ever actually worshipped her.
In these writings, Morana is associated with winter and death (one of her alternative names is Smrtka), and also with spring and rebirth.
The story goes that she married her twin brother, Jarilo (whose name is linked to jaro, spring), but he was unfaithful, and so she got her other brothers to kill him. She then transformed herself into an old, withered figure.
From the 1300s, there was a Slavic tradition of burning an effigy of Morana on the fifth Sunday of Lent, apparently to bring about death (or ‘out with the old, in with the new’). It largely died out in the 19th century but is still celebrated, mainly by schoolchildren.
And the reason for Na Moráni? Apparently, there was once a house here called Dům Na Moráni, so called because it supposedly had a sacred pagan grove in which Morana resided.
During the Nazi occupation, the bridge was called Mozartův most.
Some quick bridge trivia: it’s the third-oldest bridge across the Vltava, and the first to have trams going across it (initially steered by horses).
The bridge was also painted in the national colours when first opened; it’s decidedly less colourful now.
Here’s a pic of the bridge from 1890, the year Prague got badly flooded.
It also used to have magnificent sculptures by Josef Václav Myslbek, featuring Ctirad, Šárka, Libuše, Přemysl, Lumir, Píseň, Záboj, Slavoj, many of whom have come up in this series.
After Allied bombing in 1945, they were moved to Vyšehrad.
Palackého náměstí was created in 1896 as a result of renovation of the nearby embankment.
From 1942 to 1945, this was Rudolfovo náměstí, after Rudolph II (1552-1612), the Habsburg who certainly made Prague a more fascinating cultural centre than ever, but whose actions also indirectly led to the Thirty Years’ War.
After a stint as a tutor to noble Hungarian families, during which he decided to devote himself to the study of Czech history, he settled in Prague in 1823, helped by his budding friendship with one Josef Dobrovský.
In 1825, Palacký became the first editor of Časopis Českého muzea, the magazine of the Czech Museum. From 1830, he was also a member of the Museum’s committee.
The period would also see Palacký being invited to produce a history of the Czech nation (up until the Habsburg period started in 1526) – the first volume of Dějiny národu českého v Čechách a v Moravě would appear in 1836, and the last in 1867.
Inevitably, a pro-Hussite, pro-Bohemian work, written by a Protestant, caught the Austrian authorities’ eye, and the pre-1848 editions were subject to police censorship.
When things got a bit revolutionary in 1848, Palacký took a more cautious approach than the St Wenceslas Committee (coming up in a few days), insisting that the Czech national movement should act according to the law.
However, in April 1848, he wrote the famous Psaní do Frankfurtu (Letter to Frankfurt), explaining why the Czechs could not join a unified German parliament, and, two months later, headed the First Slavic Conference. His days in the back seat of the movement were clearly over.
Sitting in the Reichstag when it was moved to Kroměříž (1848-9), he supported the continued existence of Austria, but as a federation of regions with equal rights. He even drafted a constitution to this end. Of course, Franz Joseph I and his taste for centralism prevailed.
Having spent the 1850s dealing more with history than politics, Palacký was invited to the Austrian senate by Franz Joseph in 1861, but basically stopped turning up almost instantly when he realised he wasn’t going to be able to achieve anything there.
He was also a member of the Bohemian Diet from 1861 to 1875; he came under fire from the more radical Young Czechs for his (relative) support for Austria – support which evaporated somewhat in 1867 with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise.
In 1868, it was Palacký who tapped the inaugural stone of the National Theatre; with this and other appearances at pro-Czech events, he soon became known as the ‘Father of the Nation’.
Palacký died in Prague in 1876, and his funeral was attended by tens of thousands of people. He’s buried in Lobkovice.
Palacký is also in the ‘you might have seen his face today’ category, although you may not have noticed, as you were, like I often do, wondering why the bankomat couldn’t just give you 5 x 200 Kč like you wanted.
He also knew Czech, German, Latin, Old Slavic, Hungarian, Russian, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. A man after my own heart.
And then there’s the Kostel Zvěstování Panny Marie Na trávníčku (Church of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary ‘On the lawn’), and I’m a little bit sad that a church with such a great name never got its own street name thread. It’s on Na Slupi (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/21/prague-2-day-88-na-slupi/).
Proving that the human need for everything to be deeply significant was born much earlier than the internet was, one Vilém Lorenc theorised that these churches were an attempt to recreate the heavenly Jerusalem.
There’s also a theory that the similarities in the towers of three of the churches meant that the locations of all five churches were originally planned in the design of the New Town.
Although that’s slightly contradicted by the fact that there was a 15-year gap between the building of the first church and the last one. But still, they look nice, and, as demonstrated above, have better names than most.
Karel wanted the monastery to be a centre of Slavic church education, so he invited Glagolitic monks from the town of Tkon, on the Adriatic island of Pašman (now in Croatia), among others.
The Hussites took over the monastery in 1419, and, in ‘erm, you’re Hussites, right?’ news, didn’t destroy it.
However, in the 1400s and 1500s, the monastic community gradually disappeared. The Benedictine community wasn’t restored until the 1590s.
In 1636, Ferdinand III sent the local monks to another monastery (in the Old Town), and introduced Spanish Benedictines from Montserrat. They replaced the roof with a distinctive two-tower structure.
In 1880, the monastery was offered as a home for German Benedictine monks who had been forced to leave their town of Beuron during the Kulturkampf (basically Bismarck vs the Catholic Church). They carried out major renovations, including to the towers.
The monastery was closed by the Nazis in 1941 and turned into a military hospital. Earlier in the year, it had hosted Radio Magda, a resistance radio station.
Both towers were then destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945, but reconstruction started in the 1950s. The current design of the towers was the work of one František Maria Černý, between 1964 and 1968.
However, this was maybe the one good thing to happen to the monastery in that period – it was forcibly abolished under Akce K, and many of its monks were imprisoned.
A community was formed in exile in 1965, ultimately returning to the monastery after the Velvet Revolution. There are currently three or four monks there (different sources, different info, etc).
The square is also known for ‘Praha svým vítězným synům’ (Prague to its victorious sons), a monument whose original was created by Josef Mařatka and unveiled in 1932.
It commemorates the Czechoslovak Legion and the victims of World War One. The obelisk is surrounded by seven legionnaires (four French, two Russian, one Italian), with another French legionnaire in the centre, and a woman (Praha) with a linden branch.
The flagpole includes a quote from poet Viktor Dyk: Opustíš-li mne, nezahynu, opustíš-li mne, zahyneš (‘If you leave me, I will not perish; if you leave me, you will perish’).
Unsurprisingly, the monument did not survive the Nazi occupation.
On 28 October 1998, the 80th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, a new version, created by Kateřina Amortová based on the original designs, was unveiled.
And as for the name: Emmaus is a town of unknown location, mentioned in the New Testament. According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, after he had been crucified and his tomb had been found to be empty.
Dřevná is the adjective deriving from dřevo, wood, and that noise you can hear right now is me realising I’ve already unwittingly written about this one, because the people of the district used to make a living by trading in wood: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/26/prague-2-day-121-na-vytoni/
A řeka is a river. This leads to the adjective říční, as in říční koryto (riverbed), říční síť (river system) and říční přístav (river port).
Put a prefix onto říční, and you get poříční, another adjective which also means ‘river’ (or ‘riverine’, apparently, which I swear I’m seeing for the first time today).
So poříční právo comes out as something like ‘river law’, or ‘fluvial law’ if you want to sound a bit more educated.
The swimmers involved in getting the wood across were so important that they had their own guild.
Until 1784, the guild had its own court in a building here – which was called Poříční právo. It then functioned as Podskalí’s Town Hall, ultimately being destroyed in 1911.
Pod Slovany already existed by the 18th century; it was probably built much earlier than that.
Until the 18th century, the street was called Ozerov, named after V Ozerově, a local garden, whose name, in turn, is probably related to ostrov (island).
The name ‘Pod Slovany’, meanwhile, literally translates as ‘Under the Slavs’.
The five Slavs in question are Jerome, Cyril and Methodius, Vojtěch and Prokop. The church dedicated to the five of them was consecrated in 1372, in the presence of King Wenceslas IV.
In the 17th century, Spanish monks from Montserrat made considerable changes to the church’s structure and design.
The church was badly damaged by Allied bombing in February 1945 – the vault and both towers collapsed, and it wasn’t until 1968 that reconstruction was completed.
This is very much not the full story of the church-monastery complex round here, but, if I tell all that now, that’ll leave me with absolutely nothing to say on *checks* days 143 and 144. Děkuji za pochopení.
One of the important Czech noble families of the era was known as the Páni z Valdeka, the Lords of Valdek; the first one of them to be mentioned in writing is Oldřich Zajíc, who died in 1271.
As of the early 14th century, i.e. before Karel IV founded the New Town, the family owned a small castle (hrádek) more or less on this spot.
What's in a Prague street name 