Originally published on Twitter on 3 January 2023.
Fügnerovo náměstí was built in 1893.
Jindřich Fügner was born in 1822 on Růžová in Prague’s Old Town, as Heinrich Anton Fügner. He held jobs in trade and industry, but was more interested in education, music and sports.
When he met Miroslav Tyrš (coming up within this series), they discussed the possibility of setting up a Czech gymnastics club. This is interesting in that one source I read stated that Fügner never really mastered Czech.
Then, they actually set the club up in 1862 – it was called Sokol Pražský, and Fügner became its first leader. Its first premises were on what is now Sokolská (also coming up).
Fügner died three years later, aged just 45; his death certificate stated that the reason was pyaemia (blood poisoning). His funeral became a patriotic demonstration.
Until 1926, this was Erbenova, after Karel Jaromír Erben (1811-1870), a poet whose best-known work is Kytice (if you haven’t read it, you may well have seen the early-2000s film adaptation).
But luckily, something awesome came up – and it’s about Expo 58, AKA the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Because the award for ‘best pavilion’ actually went to the Czechoslovakian one.
Pics in this thread are screenshots from this incredibly high-quality colour documentary from the time. The Czechoslovakian section starts around the 22:20 mark, but really the whole thing is so watchable.
In the late 1950s, the Communist government had a relatively relaxed attitude to culture. So the architects who designed the pavilion – František Cubr, Josef Hrubý and Zdeněk Pokorný – had a good amount of free rein on their project.
The motto of Expo 58 was Bilan du monde, pour un monde plus humain (Evaluation of the world for a more humane world), and the Czechoslovak pavilion, in line with this, aimed to show the productiveness of the state.
It housed an exhibition called Jeden den v Československu (One day in Czechoslovakia), designed by Jindřich Santar, and consisting of twelve smaller exhibitions covering work, culture and leisure.
Between April and October 1958, the Czechoslovak exhibition got 6 million visitors. The pavilion and its restaurant building were transferred to Prague once Expo was over.
More positively, the pavilion’s restaurant building still exists on Letná. Since 2021, it’s been an exhibition hall, Expo 58 Art: https://aloos.cz/en/expo-58-gallery
The most famous product of Expo 58 is something that you will probably recognise.
In 1827, he went to Charles-Ferdinand University to study law, but his real passion was Slavic languages. He then moved to Galicia and spent eight years working as a tutor and teacher, including four years in L’viv.
Returning to Prague in 1837, he was soon appointed as a professor of Czech language and literature at Charles-Ferdinand University, later also teaching Polish. He also wrote poems and translated Russian and Polish authors.
In 1848, he led the academic legion at the university, and, later in the year, was elected to the short-lived Austrian Reichstag. He supported more conservative viewpoints.
He died shortly afterwards, also in Blatná, in 1854. He was 49.
Originally published on Twitter on 31 December 2022.
Prior to yesthealliedthingagain in 1926, the street was called Puchmajerova, after Antonín Jaroslav Puchmajer (1769-1820), writer, priest and the first Czech specialist in Romani studies.
Keeping things ex-YU after yesterday, Lublaň is Ljubljana, which is the capital of Slovenia. It’s also freaking gorgeous, and, while I’m intending to stay in Prague, Ljubljana… gave me second thoughts on more than one occasion in 2019.
Even if their openness about selling horse burgers isn’t for everyone (picture taken April 2013).
Piran, on the coast, is absurdly gorgeous too.
The most influential Slovene in the Czech Republic was probably the architect Jože Plečnik (1872-1957). He worked on Prague Castle between 1920 & 1934, and, from 1929-32, created the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord (Kostel Nejsvětějšího Srdce Páně) on Jiřák.
I’m not going to bring you a false friends fest today, but I can’t go by without mentioning that the Slovenian word for child – otrok – is the Czech word for slave. Make of this what you will.
Oh, and the Slovenian verb kaditi means to smoke, whereas kadit in Czech means, erm, ‘to do a poo’.
And on that delightful note: Srečno novo leto vsem! Se vidimo na drugi strani.
Originally published on Twitter on 30 December 2022.
Jugoslávská was built in 1884.
Until 1926, this was Karlova, after Karel IV, who will come up 1,926 times in the Prague 1 series.
It was named Jugoslávská along with all the other Allied streets in 1926, although, under the Nazi occupation, it was called Priennova. Günther Prien was a German U-Boat commander presumed killed on the U-47 submarine off the coast of Ireland in 1941.
But back to Yugoslavia…. We’ve had Bělehradská and Záhřebská. We’ve got (not really a spoiler) Lublaňská and Sarajevská coming up. So let’s use today for another round of Slavic false friends, this time between Czech and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS).
With apologies to (and full acknowledgement of) the speakers of other languages in the region, I’m going to use ‘Balkan’ quite a lot in this thread. Hajdemo!
We’ve got presidential elections in the Czech Republic in January. Volím Vás is Czech for ‘I choose you’. Whereas, down in the Balkans, volim vas is ‘I love you’. Babiš’s current campaign seems somewhat geared at old dears who feel both these things.
It’s likely that a lot of people will find the final result úžasný (fantastic) in the Czech sense, and that an equal number will find it užasan (awful) in the Balkan sense.
Hopefully, everyone will have stopped arguing about the result come Croatian srpanj, which is a month before Czech srpen, though I fear they’ll still be going on about it in Croatian listopad, which starts a month before Czech listopad does.
(Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin, meanwhile, tax my brain somewhat less by doing januar, februar, mart, etc.).
Time is clearly much slower in the Balkans, as a Czech hodina, which lasts 60 minutes, is significantly shorter than a godina, which can last either 365 or 366 days.
Meanwhile, a Czech rok also lasts 365/366 days, whereas, in the Balkans, a rok is the point before which you absolutely must submit your dissertation, file your tax return, enter a prize draw which turns out to be a spam email, etc.
In Czech, the word slovo also means ‘word’, and consists of five písmen; in the Balkans, a word is a a reč or riječ, and each of those five components is a slovo.
In Czech, you can go to many a restaurant and order a kreveta, a prawn, although it’d be odd to order just one. In the Balkans, it’d be even odder, as kreveta is the genitive form of krevet, a bed.
Czech bread, chléb, is also hleb in Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro. But in Croatia, it’s kruh, which Czechs know better as a ring or circle (which the Croatians call a krug).
In the Czech Republic, it’s quite normal to see a cloud (mrak) or two in the sky. However, it’d take quite a lot of these to create complete darkness – which is what Balkan mrak means.
In the Balkans, you can’t plivati (swim) everywhere, but it’s not generally seen as terrible behaviour. This is not true in the Czech Republic, where plivat means to spit.
If you’re looking for the hrana – the edge – in Czech, that might be because you like living on it. If you’re looking for hrana in the Balkans, it’s probably just a mealtime – the word means ‘food’ there.
If you *are* looking for an edge in the Balkans, the word you might want is rub. In Czech, however, a rub is the reverse side of something.
In Czech, an idea – nápad – can be good or bad. In the Balkans, a napad – an attack – is pretty likely to be a bad thing.
And if you’re looking for a pub in the Balkans, please don’t assume that the local word gospođa is the same as hospoda – a gospođa is a lady, and deserves to be treated accordingly.
Keeping with the ladies, in Czech, a májka is the thing you (have probably never) dance(d) around on 1 May – a maypole. It’d be a bit strange if you danced around a majka in the Balkans, though. She’s your mother.
If you were to move to Belgrade or Zagreb or Sarajevo, you’d probably find yourself a nice stan – a flat – to live in. That would be a less viable option in Prague, where a stan is a tent.
Then you’ve got the the ones which are clearly related – pravda is ‘truth’ in CZ, but ‘justice’ in the Balkans, while hledám is ‘I look for’, whereas gledam is I look *at*.
In Czech, a závodník is somebody who’s competing, typically in a race. In the Balkans, a zavodnik may or may not be competing against other people, but his aim is to get you into bed – he’s a seducer.
And someone who is pokojný is nice and peaceful in Czech, whereas someone who is pokojni in the Balkans is nice and peaceful in the ‘and will never wake up again’ sense, shall we say.
Hvala na slušanju i molim vas da ovo ne čitate neposredno prije nego što otputujete u Hrvatsku u ljeto 2023. To će vam potpuno uništiti odmor. I to prije nego spomenem hladna pića.
When the square was founded, it was called Tržiště – the Marketplace – or Tržní náměstí – Market Square, for obvious reasons. There are still popular farmers’ markets here nowadays (albeit not until the spring if you’re reading this in December): https://trhynatylaku.cz
From 1938 to 1940, and again from 1945 to 1952, this was Scheinerovo náměstí, after Josef Scheiner (1861-1932), lawyer, gymnast and official who was most famous for contributing to the development of the Sokol and of an independent Czechoslovakia.
The rest of the time, it’s been Tylovo. Josef Kajetán Tyl was born in Kutná Hora in 1808, though his surname at birth was ‘Till’ (he changed it to Týl in 1825, and Tyl in 1838).
He went to school in both Prague and Hradec Králové, before going to Charles-Ferdinand University (he didn’t finish his studies, leaving to join a travelling theatre company).
Returning to Prague after two years, he became an accountant for the military, while devoting himself to journalism and theatre on the side. He also acted at Stavovské divadlo.
In the 1830s, he also ran another (quite intellectual) theatre, Kajetánské divadlo, for four years on Mála Strana, along with Karel Hynek Mácha, among others.
In 1842, he was able to quit the day job, as he got a job as the director of the Nové české divadlo on Rúžová; when this closed in 1846, he became a dramaturgist at the Stavovské divadlo.
Tyl was active in the failed revolution of 1848 and its aftermath – he was part of the St Wenceslas Committee, was involved in the Slavic Congress, and, later in the year, was elected, briefly, to the Austrian Constituent Assembly.
However, his political leanings led him to be expelled from the Stavovské divadlo (which, at the time, still had a mainly German repertoire).
While with the travelling ensemble, he had met actress Magdalena Forchheimová, whom he would marry in 1839. The marriage was childless and lasted until his death.
However, two years later, Tyl would start an affair with Magdalena’s sister, Anna. She bore him eight children – and Josef, Anna and Magdalena all lived under the same roof.
This was a costly exercise, and no matter how much work Tyl took on, he didn’t seem able to clear his debts. He joined another travelling theatre company, but fell ill and died, destitute, in 1856. He was 48.
Originally published on Twitter on 28 December 2022.
Rumunská was built in 1884.
In the 19th century, a homestead, Šafránka, was built here (it had completely disappeared by 1911).
It was later purchased by Čeněk Vávra, who was mayor of Vinohrady from 1868 to 1873.
When the street was built, it was therefore called Vávrova. It got its current name in 1926, and you’re probably bored of me explaining the 1926 renamings at this stage.
The first thing I think of when I think of Romanian-Czech relations is how Romania didn’t send troops into Prague in 1968, which is good. Then I remember that the person making this decision was Nicolae Ceaușescu, who was not.
Here’s his speech condemning the invasion.
According to the 2011 census, Romania has just under 2,500 Czechs, a drop of almost 40% since the previous census in 2001.
As in many other countries (hello, Serbia), there was meant to be a 2021 census, but it was postponed until 2022 and we don’t have full results yet.
Czechs migrated to present-day Romania in three waves in the 19th century (1823, 1827 and 1862), as the Habsburgs wanted to populate the borderland with people who could also protect it.
After WW2, when the new Czechoslovak government was desperate to repopulate areas which Germans had been forced out of with ethnic Czechs, about 2,000 Czechs were moved from Romania to Cheb. Further migration to Czechoslovakia occurred after 1990.
Between them, the Czechs and Slovaks of Romania are guaranteed a seat in the National Parliament (as in Serbia, the Slovaks are a more sizeable minority – in 2011 there were 13,654 of them).
Romanians refer to the Czech population as pemi, a contraction of ‘boemi’.
Similarly, the Serbs refer to them as Pemci, which can have a more negative connotation. Also, Pemci can mean both Czech Bohemians and German Bohemians, which pemi doesn’t.
He was pretty well-off in the first place, and became more so when put in charge of arranging transport for the construction of Terezín fortress in the late 1800s (he would also create the Austrian army’s transport department during the Napoleonic Wars).
He used his wealth to buy multiple estates, including Nusle and Vršovice, and took the then-unused vineyards of Vinohrady, turning them into a public garden – Wimmerovy sady.
We’ll hear more from Wimmer when we get to Prague 1 at some point in 2023.
Before 1880, it seems that there was an avenue here called Růzové aleje – Rose Avenue.
It then became Belgická in 1926, as part of Vinohrady Allied Renaming Fun Day.
I’m quite glad there’s a bit of a backstory to this street, as, based on my searches, Belgian-Czech relations, while warm, are not hugely eventful, even with all the scope for arguing about who has the best beer.
And Wikipedia lists a grand total of *two* prominent Belgians of Czech origin. In a pleasing change from the other countries I’ve covered, though, they’re both women.
Hena Maes-Jelinek (1929-2008) was a literary scholar known for her pioneering work on Caribbean literature. Her stepfather was a Czech Jew.
While Alizée Poulicek, Miss Belgium 2008, unintentionally caused one of those incredibly tedious (and incredibly ‘internet in 2008’) controversies when, in the show where she was crowned, she didn’t understand a question in Flemish and answered in French.
This led to her getting booed by audience (the show took place in the decidedly Flemish city of Antwerp).
But apparently she speaks it quite well now. Never underestimate society’s ability to get mad at an attractive woman before anybody else.
And, with studies indicating that under 20% of Wallonians know Flemish, she can hardly be seen as an isolated case.
Originally published on Twitter on 26 December 2022.
Americká was built in 1884.
Until 1926, this was Krameriova, after Václav Matěj Kramerius (1753-1808), writer, publisher and journalist who was one of the early figures of the National Revival.
Interestingly, it took until 1943 – so well after a year after the US entered WW2 – for the Nazi occupiers to rename the street. They went for Japonská of all things.
It reverted to Americká in 1945, and has stayed that way, even during communism.
So, without further ado, here are twenty Americans of Czech origin. I’ve left out Madeleine, Miloš, Martina and Ivan/Ivana/Ivanka in favour of cases we may be less familiar with.
Anna Chlumsky, originally famous as a child actor in My Girl, and more recently famous for her role in Veep, is a third-generation Czech American:
Chris Columbus, director of Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire and the early Harry Potter films, is of Czech origin on his mother’s side – both her parents were born to Czech parents in Pennsylvania.
Remember Rachel Dolezal in 2015? Of course you do. Her surname is clearly of Czech origin.
Crispin Glover, known for playing eccentric characters in Back to the Future, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Charlie’s Angels, has a mother whose ancestors came from Milevsko in Písek District.
Singer Jason Mraz (I’m Yours, I Won’t Give Up), as well as the surname being another giveaway, had a grandfather (or great-grandfather?) who moved to the US from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1915:
Evan Lysacek, 2010 Olympic champion in figure skating, had a great-grandfather, František Lysáček, who arrived in Chicago from Moravia in 1925:
Ray Kroc (1902-1984), who bought McDonald’s in 1961 and then brought it to the world, was the son of Alois “Louis” Kroc, who was born near Rokycany, and Rose Hrach, whose own parents were both from South Bohemia.
Jim Lovell, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, was one of the first three astronauts to orbit the Moon. His mother, Blanche Lovell (born Masek), was of Czech origin.
Jan Hammer, he of the Miami Vice Theme and Crockett’s Theme (also used in Miami Vice), was born in Prague (his mother was the famous jazz singer Vlasta Průchová). He relocated to the US, eventually becoming a citizen, after the Warsaw Pact invasion.
John Havlicek (1940-2019), as any ČSSD* fans will guess from his surname, was of Czech heritage. He also played for the Boston Celtics, won eight NBA championships with them, and is considered one of the basketball greats.
* Do these still exist?
Finally, William Zabka, of more than one Karate Kid fame, and who also stars in Cobra Kai, is another one whose origin suddenly becomes more obvious when you look at his surname (and automatically start thinking about doing a food shop).
I’ve left loads out. Feel free to add your own! I’ll thank you by buying you a drink at the Americká street festival next year.
So let’s have some Christmas Day fun with some Czech-Polish false friends.
I’ve left out the one that everybody already knows because this is a family-friendly day.
If something in Czech is bezcenný, it’s worthless. In Polish, something that’s bezcenny is the opposite, priceless (Czech: neocenitelný).
Go the shops in Poland and ask for burak, and you’ll get beetroot. Ask for the same thing in the Czech Republic and you’ll get a single peanut.
Bydlo in Czech is a dwelling; bydło in Polish is somewhat harder to live in, what with being cattle. Cattle are dobytek in Czech… which, in Polish, can be used to mean ‘possessions’ in a non-cow sense.
Czechs like their bread to be čerstvý, i.e. fresh. Give a Pole bread that’s czerstwy and they’ll never speak to you again, as czerstwy means ‘stale’.
In the month corner, kwiecień starts in Poland a whole month before květěn starts in the Czech Republic. The same is true of czerwiec and červenec.
If a Pole gives you a długopis, that’s a pen, and you don’t necessarily have to give it back to them. If a Czech gives you a dluhopis, that’s a bond, so the Czech is probably expecting to get repayment at some point.
In Czech, a doba is an undetermined time period; in Polish, that’s very much a determined time period, namely of 24 hours.
If you use the Czech word chyba in Polish to mean ‘mistake’, then that’s… a mistake. Chyba means ‘maybe’ or ‘I guess’, i.e. it’s Polish for asi.
If you ever find yourself doing an online shop in Poland, please remember that a jagoda is a blueberry not a strawberry (Czech jahoda).
In Czech, sitting on a stolec – a throne – may make you feel quite nice. In Polish, sitting on a stolec probably won’t, as… well, add an extra o and remove the e and the c, and you might get what I’m talking about.
Conversely, it’s fine to sit on a ława – a bench – in Poland, but sitting on láva in the Czech Republic will probably burn you to death.
A Czech statek is a farm. A Polish statek is a ship. There’s probably a joke about Łódź in here somewhere.
You’ll see the word kantor all over any Polish city you visit. They’re a great place to exchange money. A Czech kantor may be able to exchange money with you, but, legally, he probably shouldn’t. He’s a schoolmaster.
In Polish, you usually need to use a droga – a road – to get from one town to another; in Czech, using a droga as a travel aid is probably going to get you into trouble if you get caught.
My personal favourite: láska in Czech is obviously something we all long for. Except that, in Polish, a laska is a walking tick. Conversely, love in Polish is miłość, whereas milost in Czech is a pardon or a reprieve. Which is łaska in Polish. Crikey.
In the Czech Republic, your hand only has one palec. In Poland, your hand has four, plus a kciuk. This is despite both Czechs and Poles being human beings.
Czech midday and midnight, poledne and půlnoc, exist in Polish as południe and północ – but those are also the standard words for south and north respectively.
Keeping on with the compass, a Polish trip to the zachód (the west) will typically (and hopefully) take longer than a Czech trip to the záchod (the toilet).
Administer a poprawa to something in Poland, and you’ve corrected it. Administer a poprava to someone in the Czech Republic and you’ve just executed them.
People speak the słoweński language in Ljubljana. They’re not so likely to do so in Bratislava, where the official language is słowacki.
And a polski sklep (the one Polish phrase Brits often know) is not a Polish cellar. It’s a shop. A Polish basement is a piwnica. Which is not a pivnice.
Finally, I’ve deliberately left this one for the end: ostatní may mean ‘the others’ in Czech, but, in Polish, ostatni is the last.
Originally published on Twitter on 24 December 2022. For those who don’t use X/Twitter: a) you’re sensible; b) I’m still knocking these posts out each day on there, but am not so good at putting them on here. However, with only two weeks left until I’ve finished Prague 1, I’m going to transfer everything over the summer, and then start with Prague 4 – simulcast on X and on this website – around the start of September. Just so you know that the website is neglected, but the source material is not!
Uruguayská was built in 1884. Celebrating Christmas today? Your gift from me is that you get to watch me trying to spin this one into a thread.
Until 1931, this was Dobrovského, after Josef Dobrovský (1753-1839), philologist and theologian credited with founding both the modern written Czech language and Slavic linguistics.
It’s been Uruguayská since, except from 1940 to 1945, when it was Hraběte Spee, AKA Maximilian Johannes Maria Hubert Reichsgraf von Spee (1861-1914), a German naval officer killed during the Battle of the Falkland Islands.
So, where to from here?
I know – I can tell you about the Czech Embassy in Uruguay!
No, wait, it’s in Buenos Aires.
OK then – I can tell you about the Uruguayan Embassy in Prague!
No, wait, it’s in Vienna.
So let me tell you about how Uruguay hosted (and won) the first World Cup in 1930, and Czechoslovakia… oh, wait, they didn’t qualify.
Grr.
Even the naming of Uruguayská in 1931 is a bit of a mystery, and it can’t have been because it was an ally in WW1. It wasn’t not one – Uruguay severed ties with Germany – but it never took an active role in the fighting.
Their producto estrella is el trdelnik (don’t @ me with any ‘but is it Czech’ stuff, thanks), which is made of manteca, canela, nueces, azúcar, leche, huevos, vainilla y levadura. El medovnik gets a good write-up too.
The also host a Czech dinner once a month, as well as Spanish classes and language exchanges.
So: let me reframe my Christmas present to you: I’ve given you yet more proof that many Czechs are awesome and do awesome things all over the world. Now go and enjoy your carp!
Originally published on Twitter on 23 December 2022.
Záhřebská was built in 1872.
Until 1880, this was Hrabova, after Josef Hraba (born 1815), a hotelier who owned the land upon which the street was built (and who died the year before it was).
Then, until 1926, it was Klicperova, after Václav Kliment Klicpera (1752-1859), a playwright who was particularly important in the development of Czech comedic theatre.
Zagreb is the capital of Croatia, a country that quite possibly has a Czech ethnic majority for two months of the year. (I exaggerate)
It also has a more permanent Czech population of just under 10,000, mainly in Western Slavonia. There’s even one village, Končanica (population 2,360), where they outnumber Croats.
Another village, Daruvar, where Czechs are almost 20% of the population, produces this.
Perhaps the most famous Czech of Croatian origin was Vlado Milunić, who was born in Zagreb in 1951, but moved to Czechoslovakia in his teens. He designed the Dancing House with Frank Gehry.
(Divisive building; great views if you ignore the guy in front)
Zagreb, meanwhile, is really underrated, although this can partially be put down to the fact that Croatia is shaped the way it is, and it’s not exactly a quick drive from the most popular coastal resorts.
Although some of the menus in the shopping centre under the train station are a little worrying, or were in 2015.
And its hotels sometimes send you slightly ominous messages, or did in 2019.
And if you didn’t know that Hrvat (Croat, Chorvat) —> cravate, this pic from the same trip definitely rams that message home.
(I still maintain that gritted Czech teeth must have been involved, though)
Things then got a bit more localised in 1940, when the street was renamed Poznaňská, Poznań having been annexed by Nazi Germany in 1939. Here are some snaps of when I chose the absolute worst time to try and be a tourist in Poznań this summer.
The street became Polská again in 1945, before becoming Jana Masaryka in 1946 (spoiler alert: during his lifetime).
However, from 1952 to 1990, it was Makarenkova, after Anton Makarenko (1888-1939), a Ukrainian who was the most influential educational theorist in the USSR (second spoiler alert: his death is quite murky too).
Jan Masaryk was born at number 22 on this very street in 1886. His parents were Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and his American wife, Charlotte Garrigue.
He skipped his high school graduation and moved to the States in 1906, carrying out a series of low-paid jobs in New York and Bridgeport. He returned home in 1913.
During WW1, he fought on the Austro-Hungarian side in Galicia, Hungary and Italy.
While he received a silver medal for bravery, he was also bullied because of his father’s work in favour of Czechoslovak independence.
When dad became the first President of Czechoslovakia, Jan’s days of low-paid jobs were no more: he became chargé d’affaires in Washington in 1919, and, returning a year later, became personal secretary to Edvard Beneš, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In 1925, he was sent to London as the Czechoslovak ambassador, where he would stay until late 1938.
In September of that year, he had personally handed a note, written by now-President Edvard Beneš, to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, asking Britain to stop appeasing Nazi Germany. We know how that went.
After a brief stint in the US, Masaryk returned to London in 1940, becoming Foreign Minister of the Czechoslovak Government in Exile.
He also made regular contributions to BBC’s Czech-language programme, Volá Londýn (London Calling):
In 1945, after the war had ended, he signed the Charter of the United Nations on behalf of Czechoslovakia in San Francisco.
A year later, he became the first chairman of the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA).
Returning from exile in July 1945, he was Foreign Minister in three consecutive governments, and was also open to cooperation with the Soviet Union – which can presumably be explained, at least in part, by the aftertaste of his 1938 experience.
By 1947, Stalin had rejected Czechoslovakia’s proposed participation in the Marshall Plan, and Masaryk became disillusioned.
Yet when the communist coup (‘Victorious February’) occurred in 1948, Masaryk was one of the few non-communist government members who didn’t resign.
A month later, on 10 March, he was found dead under a window at his residence, Černín Palace.
The term ‘Third Defenestration of Prague’ is sometimes used to describe the incident – by those who think it actually was one.
It has never been clarified whether this was a murder, a suicide or an accident. An investigation in 1968 said it was likely to be the last of these, but didn’t rule out murder.
The picture above is taken from this footage of his funeral, which includes some wonderful images of Prague:
The 2016 film Masaryk (directed by Julius Ševčík, and renamed ‘A Prominent Patient’ for international release, as if ‘Masaryk’ were that damned unpronounceable) covered Masaryk’s life (in the UK) from 1937 to 1939. It won 12 awards at the Český lev.
Then, also like Anglická (and Moskevská), it was renamed to Palackého until 1926.
In 1940, both Anglická and Moskevská became Bismarckova, after Otto von Bismarck (1815-98), who’d masterminded the unification of Germany.
They then became Palackého again from 1945 to 1947, before reverting to their current names.
French-Czech relations obviously go back a very long way, with the French court raising Karel IV and taking credit for how sophistiqué et raffiné et cultivé et comme il faut et tout ça he was.
On 9 December 1988, less tha a year before the Velvet Revolution, then-President of France, François Mitterrand, when on a visit to Prague, had breakfast with Václav Havel, who was then a dissident, at the French Embassy.
Famously, during their conversation, Havel told Mitterrand that he went everywhere with a toothbrush, because he didn’t know how/where the evening would end.
As for renowned French people of Czech origin? Well, the most obvious example must be Milan Kundera, who went into exile in France in 1975 and became a citizen in 1981.
He’s written all his novels in French since 1983.
Ivan Bek (1909-1963), a football player who played for Yugoslavia in the first World Cup in 1930, and later played for France, was born in Belgrade to a German father and a Czech mother.
Enki Bilal, an award-winning creator of comic books such as the Nikopol and Monstres series, was also born in Belgrade, to a Czech mother and a Bošnjak father.
Gérard Philipe, one of the big stars of French cinema until his untimely death at the age of 36 in 1959, was one quarter Czech:
French Jewish printmaker and sculptor Terry Haass (1932-2016) was born in Český Těšín. The family fled Czechoslovakia in 1938.
Alfons Mucha (1860-1939), while never becoming a French citizen, lived in Paris during the Art Nouveau period, and now I just want to create a thread consisting entirely of his work.
Originally published on Twitter on 2o December 2022.
Šubertova was built in 1905.
Like Ibsenova (which is on the other side of the Vinohrady Theatre), this was originally called U divadla (By the Theatre).
However, while what is now Ibsenova was renamed to Divadelní in 1920 (and Ibsenova in 1928), its other half maintained its original name until 1931.
František Adolf Šubert was born in Dobruška, in the Hradec Králové region, in 1849.
After finishing secondary school in HK (Alois Jirásek attended the same school at the same time), he moved to Prague to study philosophy.
However, he quit after a year to devote himself to journalism, writing for publications such as Politik, and running his own magazine, Brousek, from 1873 to 1878.
He also wrote poems and historical novels.
When the National Theatre was inaugurated in 1883, Šubert became its first director, a position he would hold until 1900, when he quit to become the director of the Czech Graphic Union.
However, he returned to the theatre in 1907, when he became the director of the newly opened Vinohrady Theatre, although he only held the role for a year.
After that, he focused on journalism again, until he died in 1915.
Originally published on Twitter on 19 December 2022.
Ibsenova was built in 1905.
Until 1920, this was U divadla – ‘By the (National) Theatre’ – before becoming Divadelní (Theatre Street) until 1928.
Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien, southern Norway, in 1828 – i.e. the name change to Ibsenova occurred on the centenary of his birth. This is the house he was born in.
At fifteen, he moved to Grimstad to become a pharmacist.
He had an affair with the apothecary’s maid, who got pregnant. Ibsen paid for the son’s upbringing for 14 years, but never met him.
In 1850, he moved to Oslo (then Christiana) to enter the university, but failed some of the entry exams.
Around this time, he wrote his first plays. They weren’t hugely successful, but got noticed enough for him to get work at Det norske Theater in Bergen for six years.
He returned to Christiana in 1858 to become creative director of the Christiania Theatre.
Both theatres are long gone, having closed in 1863 and 1899 respectively.
Ibsen and his wife Suzannah moved abroad in 1862, to Sorrento, and later to Rome, Dresden and Munich.
It would be almost thirty years before he returned to live in Norway.
In this time, he would finally find commercial success, with Brand (‘Fire’, 1865), Peer Gynt (1867), Emperor and Galilean (Kejser og Galilæer, 1873) and The Pillars of Society (Samfundets støtter, 1877).
Ibsen saw Emperor and Galilean as his main work, while The Pillars of Society was his first play to be performed in English.
A Doll’s House (Et dukkehjem) caused great controversy upon its premier in Copenhagen in 1879, as it criticised stereotypical gender roles of the time.
Controversy also occurred with Ghosts (Gengangere, 1881), which touched upon venereal disease and incest, and An Enemy of the People (En folkefiende, 1882), whose protagonist is ostracised by his community for reporting that the waters in the public baths are contaminated.
The Wild Duck (Vildanden, 1884) and Rosmersholm (1886) are widely considered by critics to be Ibsen’s best works; later works such as Hedda Gabler (1890) and The Master Builder (Bygmester Solness, 1892) focused more on individuals than on society.
Ibsen, having suffered strokes in 1900 and 1901, died in Kristiana (as it was spelt at that time) in 1906. His final word was ‘Tvertimod!’.
This translates as ‘On the contrary’, and followed his nurse telling a visitor that he was feeling better.
I’m now wondering if my last words will be ‘Právě naopak!’.
Ibsen’s plays have been performed regularly at the Národní divadlo, as well as at Švandovo divadlo in Smíchov.
Here’s a quite-appropriate-for-the-current-weather picture of Ibsen in 1902, by the National Theatre in what we now call Oslo.
I don’t have much to say about peace, except this: just f**king imagine.
In 1933, it became Vinohradské náměstí, which probably needs little explanation.
But, so far, there haven’t been many early 1930s renamings in this series, and 1933 feels like a very apt year to decide that peace isn’t really the way things are going.
Then the Nazis renamed it Říšské náměstí, or Reichsplatz, in 1940. No comment.
It then reverted to Vinohradské in 1945 before becoming Náměstí Míru in 1947.
I have no idea why Náměstí Míru was favoured over Mírové náměstí, though, in my head, the former sounds a lot more communist. Though that could just be me.
Famous buildings on NM include the Kostel svaté Ludmily / Church of St. Ludmila. It was designed by Josef Mocker and opened in 1893.
A combination of the building of the A-line of the metro and reconstruction meant that the church closed in 1974 and didn’t fully open again until 1992.
The Pope raised it to the status of a minor basilica (which I assume is not faint praise despite kind of sounding like it) in August of this year.
Then there’s the Vinohrady Theatre / Divadlo na Vinohradech, opened in 1907.
There’s some great footage of its actors on strike in November 1989 here:
During communism, it was occupied by the Czechoslovak State Railways, and became known as Ústřední kulturní dům železničářů (Central Cultural House of Railway Workers), or ÚKDŽ.
Finally for now, there’s the Alegorie Míru / Allegory of Peace statue, created in 1979 by Jiří Kryštůfek, Ondřej Špaček and Zdenka Nováková, and, also named, appopriately, ‘Dívka s holubicí’ (Girl with a Dove).
Back to the current name… Wow, writing about Anglická two days ago has really screwed me over for coming up with material today, hasn’t it. But let’s throw some random facts out and see what sticks.
During World War II, London hosted the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, more correctly known as the Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee (Výbor Československého Národního Osvobození).
František Moravec, the head of the country’s military intelligence, coordinated resistance activity, having managed to smuggle intelligence files from Prague to Croydon Airport on 14 March 1939, the day before the Nazi occupation started.
Bohemia House in West Hampstead is a very good place to go for some proper Czech grub and beer: https://bohemiahouse.london/beginning-of-national-house/, especially when it’s July 2016 and you’ve just told your friends and family that you’re moving back to Prague.
The London Eye is a six-country creation; one of those countries is the Czech Republic, as the iron spindle and hub were cast here by Škoda.
The wheel was only ever meant to be temporary; I regularly hope that somebody will announce, one day, that the same is true of Brexit.
And here’s the Queen having a jolly old peak round Old Town Square in 1996:
While Charles and Di also popped over in 1991:
I’m a Londoner of sorts. I lived there until I was six, and again from 2008 to 2016 (following my first stint in Prague).
I can’t imagine swapping Prague for London – or for anywhere, really – again.
But my 8.5 years as an adult in London gave me a level of self-confidence and a feeling that it was OK to be myself that I hadn’t particularly had until that point, and I’ll always be grateful for that.
Originally published on Twitter on 16 December 2022.
Bělehradská was built in the 19th century.
Until 1875, this was the Linecká silnice – the highway to Linz in Austria; it then became the Nuselská silnice – the highway to a somewhat nearer place, Nusle, until 1880.
Belgrade is, of course, the capital of Serbia – a country where Czechs are a recognised national minority.
Czech migration to Serbia started in the early 19th century. A Czech primary school existed in Belgrade from 1923 to 1960.
According to the most recent census carried out in Serbia (the results of the 2022 census haven’t been published yet), there were 1,824 Czechs in Serbia in 2011.
Not a huge number, especially when compared to the 52,750 Slovaks recorded in the same census. And it’s also down from 3,225 in 1981 and 2,211 in 2002 – sadly, demographic decline is a key feature of Serbia these days.
There is one municipality in Vojvodina – Bela Crkva – where Czech is an official language, although Serbian, Hungarian and Romanian are too. Czechs make up about 4.5% of the municipality’s population.
There’s also one village – Češko Selo (literally ‘Czech Village’) where Czechs form 84.78% of the population. But that, in 2002, meant 39 inhabitants out of 46, as Češko Selo is also the smallest village in Vojvodina.
The Czech Media Centre in Bela Crkva also prepares a half-hour show which is broadcast weekly by Radio Televizija Vojvodine.
Meanwhile, local TV station TV Pančevo made a six-part series (in Czech) about the Czech minority in 2021:
Finally, back to the capital… I’ve got a lot of time for Belgrade, so much so that, in 2015, when I was thinking it was time to move, it was a toss-up between there and Prague.
I made the right choice, and a trip to Belgrade in late February 2022 really bummed me out for pretty obvious reasons. But here’s a few snaps that justify why it was a toss-up in the first place.
And a few more, complete with cat sleeping in window of bookshop and a particularly creative clock.
And, of course, Serbian transliteration being the best.
In the most on-the-nose renaming of all time, the Nazi occupiers renamed it Irská – Irish Street – from 1940 to 1945.
England is a country that shares borders with Scotland and Wales, with which it forms the island of Great Britain, which is located in the North Atlan… no, sorry, I’m not doing this.
Let’s jump straight to English people of Czech origin, then.
These are alphabetical by first name, and I’ve surely missed out many important ones – feel free to add your own.
Actor Harry Lloyd – known for his role as Viserys Targaryen in Game of Thrones – was a descendant, on his mother’s side, of Ignaz Moscheles, a pianist and composer born in Prague in 1794 and whose son, Felix, was a painter, peace activist and promoter of Esperanto.
Alf Dubs, Baron Dubs, Labour MP from 1979 to 1987, was born in Prague in 1932. He was one of the 669 children rescued by the Kindertransport, organised by Nicholas Winton and others, in 1939. Unlike many, he was able to join his parents in the UK.
(just pointing out I’ve already broken the alphabetical order so that you don’t have to point it out yourself)
Jan Pinkava, director of the animated films Geri’s Game and Ratatouille – both of which won Oscars – was born in Prague in 1963, but his family emigrated to the UK six years later:
John Tusa, presenter of BBC 2’s Newsnight from 1980 to 1986, managing director of the BBC World Service from 1986 to 1993, and managing director of the Barbican Centre from 1995 to 2007, was born as Jan Tůša in Zlín in 1936, emigrating in 1939.
Jovanka Houska, who was the British Women’s Chess Champion nine times between 2008 and 2019, was born in South London, but her grandfather was part Czech.
Karel Reisz, a filmmaker best known for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), a classic of kitchen-sink realism, was born in Ostrava in 1932, and was also rescued in 1939 by Nicholas Winton.
Mike Sarne, singer of the somewhat horrific 1962 hit with Wendy Richard (AKA Pauline off Eastenders), Come Outside, was born in London in 1940 to parents who had fled to the UK from Břeclav in 1938:
I think he remains the only Czech to have a had number 1 hit in the UK, but am obviously always hoping for this to change.
Petr Torák, born in Liberec in 1981, applied for asylum in the UK in 1999. In 2006, he started working as a police officer in Peterborough.
He has an MBE for services to the Roma community.
As stated here by his partner, Emma Freud, Richard Curtis, director of all those Hugh Grant or Renée Zellweger-starring romcoms, and co-founder of Comic Relief, is the son of a Czechoslovakian refugee who moved to Australia as a teenager:
Actor Tom Hollander – very recently seen in The White Lotus (WATCH IT) was born in Bristol in 1967 to a father who came from a Czech Jewish background, but who converted to Catholicism.
Playwright Tom Stoppard was born Tomáš Sträussler in Zlín in 1937, where his father worked for Baťa. The family fled to Singapore on 15 March 1939 – the day the Nazis took over.
His father died trying to flee Singapore in 1942; his mother, Martha Becková, married an army major, Kenneth Stoppard, in 1945, and the family moved to England a year later.
What's in a Prague street name 
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