Like yesterday’s Hlavova, the area was built up gradually and the street got a name in 1963.
Emil Votoček was born in Hostinné in 1872. He studied technical engineering at what is now ČVUT, and subsequently studied in both Mulhouse and in Göttingen (where he studied sugar chemistry, his main field of expertise).
In 1895, he became an assistant at ČVUT. Having become an associate professor in 1895, he became a ‘full’ professor of inorganic and organic chemistry two years later, and, by 1921, was the university’s rector.
As well as this, he had a deep interest in classical music, and, from the 1930s onwards, wrote about 70 compositions, as well as a dictionary of musical terms from foreign languages.
One of Votoček’s students was Otto Wichterle (1913-98), inventor of modern soft contact lenses.
Votoček remained with the university until 1939, when the Nazis took over Bohemia and Moravia. He died in 1950.
Hlavova, like its surroundings, was built up before and after WW2, but not named until 1963.
Jaroslav Hlava was born in Dolní Kralovice, near Benešov, in 1855. He graduated in medicine from Charles University in 1879.
By 1887, he had become a ‘full’ professor of pathological anatomy there, having previously been a substitute professor. He was also the dean of the Faculty of Medicine on several occasions, as well as the rector of the whole University from 1906-7.
Hlava produced an article called O úplavici (On Dysentery), also in 1887. This got an English translation, but there was a slight problem: it was credited to somebody called O. Uplavici.
Which is amazing.
Just as amazingly, this didn’t get corrected until the 1930s.
Hlava founded the university’s institute of pathology, which ultimately opened on Albertov in 1921 and is known as ‘Ústav Hlavův’.
We don’t know when Horská was built, but it’s decidedly old.
The first documented names for the street are Ztracená (Lost) and Na Ztracené vartě (At the lost guard-post), presumably because, back before multiple roads and public transport were a thing, this was quite a long way from central Prague.
It became known as Horská in 1869. That’s an adjective denoting a mountain or – let’s be fair, we’re in Prague – a hill. The street leads upwards from Na Slupi to the Augustinian Monastery at Karlov.
Jaromír Korčák was born in Vrážné, near Svitavy, in 1898. After studying natural history and geography in Prague, he became a commissioner at the State Statistical Office.
In 1948, he qualified as an Associate Professor in demography at the Charles University, becoming a Professor of Geography in 1951. The department split in two in 1953, and Korčák became Head of Economic and Regional Geography until 1960.
He was vice-president of the Czechoslovak Geographical Society from 1961 to 1962, and then its president from 1962 to 1969.
He died in 1989, aged 94.
The Faculty of Natural Sciences, located on nearby Albertov, has an auditorium named after him.
Also named after him is Korčák’s Distribution, or Korčak’s Law, which is a ‘type of statistical distribution characterised by unidirectional skewness’, and it would probably be very unwise to ask me to explain that any further.
František Lenoch was born in 1898. Graduating from Charles University’s Faculty of Medicine in 1923, he later qualified in physiatry, balneology and internal medicine.
In the 1930s, he worked in Trenčianske Teplice, a spa town in Slovakia, and stayed in Slovakia during the war.
Returning to Prague, he became head of the Institute of Physiatry and Balneology at Charles University in 1948, as well as head of rheumatology at Thomayer Hospital (now Thomayer University Hospital) in Prague 4.
From 1963 to 1965, he was president of the European League against Rheumatism (EULAR), now known as the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology.
He died in 1970 and is buried in Pankrác Cemetery.
Apparently, he also found the time to become fluent in Hungarian, Amharic and Latin. We’d have got on.
We’re still on the post-Přemysl, pre-Bořivoj mythical princes. Neklan was number six, and was the father of number seven, Hostivít.
Again, there are theories as to where his name came from. One is that, due to his love of peace*, Neklan did ‘not tilt’ (thrust weapons).
* Apologies for the televised presidential debate flashback, I know it’s been too soon.
Another is based on the same day-of-week theory as the other princes – Neklan would have been Friday, though the link between Friday and his name isn’t obvious.
Although there’s potential for a really bad joke about ‘pátek’ and not wanting to invoke Article 5, isn’t there.
According to Kosmas, Neklan hated war so much that he sent a double, Tyro-Čestmír, to fight for him (hello Patroclus, hello Achilles).
Neklan also adopted the son of a slain prince, Vlastislav, and entrusted his care to a friend, Durynk, who then killed the child in the apparent belief that Neklan would be grateful for this.
When Durynk went to get his reward for Neklan, Neklan decided that the reward would be that Durynk would get to choose the method of his own death (and then damn well bugger off and die at once).
Neklan is probably the only one of the seven mythical princes to be the inspiration for a play of the same name, written by Julius Zeyer in 1892 and premiered at the National Theatre four years later.
Stop press: this seems to be the last Mythical Prince Street in Prague 2, so it’s worth mentioning the other theory about where they got their names.
Musicologist and folklorist Vladimír Karbusický (1925-2002) claimed the names came from a fragment of a 9th-century text sent by the Czechs to the Franks: Krok’ kazi (Tetha), lubo premyšl, nezamyšl m’nata voj’n u‘ni zla, kr’z my s‘ neklan (am), gosti vit.
Which translates as something like: ‘Stop your steps, Tetha, and, rather, think, I do not intend war or evil for you, we do not bow to the cross, we welcome guests.’
In that text, you might recognise Nezamysl (1), Vnislav (4), Neklan (6) and Hostivít (7), as well as Mnata (2), Vojen (3) and Křesomysl (5).
If you read yesterday’s post, you might have an idea of where we’re heading already: Vnislav was the fourth of the seven legendary princes between Přemysl and Bořivoj.
While the sequence suggests that Vnislav’s name relates to Wednesday, the context isn’t entirely clear. It’s possible that there was a Slavic god of commerce called Vnislav – and a more famous god of commerce was Mercury (think mercredi, think miércoles).
We can deduce that Vnislav’s dad was Vojen. Kosmas claims that Vnislav took over after Vojen’s death; however, Dalimil says that Vojen gave Bohemia to Vnislav during his lifetime (and that Vnislav died soon after).
Dalimil actually calls Vnislav ‘Unislav’, too, which is giving me massive Hugely Successful Yugoslavian Company Whose Main Trade We Still Can’t Work Out Fifty Years Later vibes.
Hostivít was number seven, and is therefore assumed to be Bořivoj’s father. If he existed, we can deduce that he must have ruled before 872 or so. We can also assume that his own father was called Neklan.
However, Kosmas didn’t write all that much about Hostivít, other than that he and Slavibor arranged the marriage between Bořivoj and Ludmila (Slavibor’s daughter) when she was born. There’s also a brief mention of a brother, Děpolt.
As with Nezamsyl, Hostivít’s name is of interest. One theory is that the dukes were named in relation to days of the week. We saw that Nezamysl, the first in the series, can be linked to Sunday.
Which logically means that Hostivít, Duke Number Seven, is related to Saturday – and, apparently, Saturday was the day on which you would welcome guests (vítání hostů in modern Czech).
Upon being plucked from obscurity by a horse, Přemysl placed his staff in the ground. Three sprouts grew from this, of which only one survived, supposedly an omen that two of his sons with Libuše would die, but the third (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/20/prague-2-day-83-nezamyslova/) would continue the dynasty.
Přemysl’s shoes were made from bast (tree bark, probably from a linden). When he left to marry Libuše, he requested that these be taken with him, as a reminder that a peasant can rise to the highest rank, and for his followers to remain humble.
The Přemyslid dynasty, named after him, would last until 1306. It’s said that, at coronations, a pair of bast shoes were put on display.
It’s not clear what year Vratislavova was built in.
When Vyšehrad was a separate town from Prague, this was Hlavní, Vyšehrad’s Main Street, and included the town hall. It merged with nearby Vyšehradská in 1870, but broke free again in 1891, with its current name.
The future Vratislav II was born around 1032 as the second son of Břetislav I, who would be Duke of Bohemia from 1034 to 1055.
Břetislav I made the older son, Spytihněv II, Duke of Bohemia, while Vratislav became Duke of Olomouc. Vratislav left for Hungary after, in true Přemyslid style, the two brothers fell out, but they reconciled in 1058, and Vratislav returned.
When Spytihněv died in 1061, Vratislav also became Duke of Bohemia. In 1068, he appointed another brother, Jaromír, as bishop of Prague.
However – shock alert – this was another tumultuous fraternal relationship. Vratislav had set up a diocese at Olomouc, and Jaromír, sensing a loss of his own power, used force to steal the relics that had been moved from Prague to Olomouc.
Vratislav was a major supporter of Henry IV (King of Germany from 1054 to 1105), particularly during the Investiture Controversy, in which Henry fought with Pope Gregory VII over who had the right to select bishops, abbots, and the Pope himself.
Having given Vratislav permission to wear the same mitre and tunic as his predecessors, Gregory presumably wasn’t all that thrilled about this, but, even when Henry was excommunicated, Vratislav’s relations with the papacy remained decent.
Vratislav supported Henry in campaigns of Saxony, Swabia and Italy; Henry awarded him for his Schillerová-standard devotion by giving him the right to call himself the first King (not Duke) of Bohemia in 1085. However, the title didn’t pass automatically to his successors.
Vratislav also created the Vyšehrad Chapter in 1070.
He died in a hunting accident in 1092, and was buried at St. Peter and Paul’s Church.
In 1564, the Vyšehrad Chapter, having decided that Vyšehrad – at that time largely populated by poor craftsmen – needed a brewery, opened one here. It was originally called Libušínn (which looks like a pun on ‘inn’ but obviously isn’t).
Subsequently known as Pivovar Libušinka, it apparently lasted all the way until 1899. This is a painting of the brewery building from 1903, by Jan Minařík.
In the same year, it was destroyed as part of work on the Vyšehrad embankment.
It’s named after its first owner, František Sequens, a teacher, despite the fact that it was sold to another family (which still owns it) only three years after construction was completed.
Václav Štulc was born in Kladno in 1814. After studying theology in Prague (1835 to 1839), he was ordained as a priest.
(painter unknown)
As well as his duties as a priest, he wrote poetry and contributed to various magazines (while also becoming editor of others). He also made financial contributions to the National Museum, which had been founded in 1818.
In 1860, he became dean of Vyšehrad. He was vocal about the extent to which the once-great area had disintegrated; the Habsburgs responded to this by giving him a two-month prison sentence in 1863.
Becoming provost in 1871, he set about Making Vyšehrad Great Again. MVGA involved creating a new residence for the provost (on this street) and the creation of a park (now known as Štulcovy sady).
He also installed the original (and formerly Václavák-based statue of) St Wenceslas on his horse in the park (don’t get too excited, though – the statue you see there now is a copy from 1950).
Perhaps most significantly, he helped turn the cemetery at Vyšehrad into a burial ground for many of the icons of Czech history and culture. Štulc died in 1887 and, fittingly, is also buried there.
Soběslavova was named around 1892, but already existed before then.
Soběslav was the youngest son of Vratislav II, Bohemia’s first king (from 1085). In true Přemyslid style, his relationship with certain family members was not the best.
His older brother, Bořivoj II, was Duke of Bohemia from 1100 to 1107, but his relative, Svatopluk Olomoucký, seized the throne in 1107 and had both Bořivoj and Soběslav banished to Poland.
Bořivoj II tried to regain the throne after Svatopluk was assassinated, but it went to the middle brother, Vladislav I.
Soběslav became a prince in Brno and Znojmo when the two sides in this brotherly feud made up in 1115; he was promptly removed from these roles (and banished) in 1123 when he fell out with Vladislav again.
When Vladislav died in 1125, Soběslav returned and became Duke of Bohemia. This went down badly with Ota II. Černý, brother of the late Svatopluk, who claimed the throne and also had German backing.
Lothair III, Holy Roman Emperor, subsequently sent troops in to get rid of Soběslav. This culminated in the Battle of Chlumec (1126), where Ota was killed and Soběslav captured Lothair (who was later freed).
(Painting by Adolf Liebscher)
In 1130, Soběslav uncovered a conspiracy to assassinate him. The main instigator was blinded and quartered, whereas another participant, Břetislav, son of Břetislav II (who had been Duke until 1100), was ‘merely’ blinded.
Soběslav died in 1140. Despite having at least four sons, the throne went to his nephew, Vladislav II, who would also become the second Bohemian king.
Soběslav was also the last king to have his primary residence at Vyšehrad; appropriately, he is buried in Saints Peter and Paul Basilica.
V Pevnosti was named in 1900 but presumably built some time before then. Its name translates as ‘In the fortress’.
Czech monarchs lived at Vyšehrad until 1140, when their residence moved back to Prague Castle. It wasn’t until 1348, and the rule of Charles IV, that Vyšehrad started to get close to its former importance.
Charles had Vyšehrad connected to the city walls of Prague, which were then being built, ordered the reconstruction of the fortifications, and had a royal palace built.
He also ruled that, when new kings were being crowned, the first part of the ceremony would take place here, the night before the actual coronation.
Vyšehrad was inevitably screwed over by the Hussites in 1420, and then became a small town inhabited by craftsmen.
It wasn’t until the Thirty Years’ War that Vyšehrad’s fortifications were strengthened. In 1653, five years after the war ended, construction of a proper fortress began. Both the design and its actual construction were largely carried out by Italians.
One consequence of this was that the town of Vyšehrad was destroyed. The fortress itself was a pentagon (not all sides were of equal length), with six bastions, originally named after saints but later numbered 33 to 38.
For all the work that took place on the fortress, it never ended up being used in active combat. It was occupied by the French (1741-2) and by the Prussians (1744), but fighting never occurred and Prussian attempts to destroy the fortress were thwarted by locals.
By 1866 – the year in which the Austrians lost to the Prussians at the Battle of Sadová – it became accepted that city fortresses were no longer that useful or relevant.
The walls were gradually dismantled starting in 1875, and, in 1911, the fortress buildings became the property of the City of Prague. Vyšehrad itself had become part of Prague in 1883.
Our Vyšehrad stories have all been legend-based so far. So now it’s time for some stuff that we can be confident actually happened.
By the year 1000, Vyšehrad had started to be mentioned in writing. We know that, around this time (i.e. in the reigns of Boleslavs II & III, as well as Jaromír), a mint existed here – coins with the name of Boleslav II on them are for sale quite often.
In 1070, Duke (and later first Czech king) Vratislav II had a dispute with his brother, Gebhart, and decided to move his seat from Prague Castle to Vyšehrad.
He also founded the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul there. The version you see today is somewhat more modern (built between 1887 and 1903 in the Gothic style), because the original was destroyed in a fire in 1249.
There was also a royal palace (no longer present), a stone bridge (traces remain), several other churches, and – giving today’s street its name – the Rotunda of Saint Martin, probably built between 1060 and 1090.
Rotundas are the main feature of Roman architecture in the Czech Republic, and this one is both the oldest rotunda in Prague, and the only building surviving from Vyšehrad’s days as a royal residence. It’s likely that the rotunda served as the Vyšehrad parish church.
St Martin is Martin of Tours (died 367), who, according to legend, cut his cloak in two to give half of it to a beggar, and then dreamed of Jesus wearing the half he had given away. Martin was also a patron saint of France during the Third Republic.
The rotunda was badly damaged by Hussite raids in 1420 (but what wasn’t?), and also by a fire in 1528. Although the chapel was restored, it then got damaged by Prussian fighters in 1757, and Joseph II later decommissioned it as a place of worship.
While it was meant to be destroyed in the 1840s to make way for a road, this didn’t happen, largely thanks to the intervention of Karel Chotek of sady fame.
In 1875, the Vyšehrad Chapter (which is located at the church of Peter and Paul, pictured above) purchased the rotunda, which led to its full restoration. In a nice little two-fingers-up to the Prussians, its interior includes a walled-up cannon ball.
Libušina was built so long ago that I can’t even guess the century.
Until the mid-19th century, the street was known as Převoznická (approx. ‘Ferry Street’), because this was where the once-upon-a-time ferry to/from Vyšehrad would stop / start.
As mentioned a couple of days back, Libuše was the youngest daughter of Krok, and, as happens so often with mythological siblings, was the wisest and the most beautiful.
When her father died, Libuše ruled over the tribe as queen, which many male members of the tribe found displeasing.
Society’s come a long way since th… yeah, no, it hasn’t, has it.
In particular, when Libuše ruled in favour of one man in a dispute, the other man asked for a male ruler.
She predicted the existence of a ploughman, and instructed her men to let a horse loose, as the horse would subsequently find this man.
The horse went all the way to Stadice, which is now in Ústí nad Labem district, and found the man, exactly as Libuše had said.
His name Přemysl Oráč (the Ploughman). They married.
Libuše’s gift of prophecy was important for another reason. Standing on top of Vyšehrad, she looked out and predicted the future existence of of a wonderful city ‘whose glory will touch the stars’.
She could, of course, have been talking about Blackpool or somewhere. We will never know.
But she did request the building of a castle, and predicted that the next few centuries would not be the easiest.
Famous representations of Libuše include Bedřich Smetana’s 1881 opera of the same name.
On 11 June in that year, it became the first piece to be performed at the National Theatre.
Just two months later, the Theatre would be devastated by a fire; when it reopened in 1883, the first piece fo be performed was, once again, Libuše.
Libuše was also the subject of 2009 film The Pagan Queen, directed by Constantin Werner. Some American critics were fairly complimentary about it; Czech critics… were not.
The street is also located just below the ruins of Libušina lázeň – Libuše’s spa, a pentagonal building built as a guardhouse in the 14th century, apparently in the spot where Libuše used to bathe.
During the Nazi occupation, this was Albíkova, after Zikmund Albík z Uničova, or Sigismund Albicus (died 1427), provost of Vyšehrad and archbishop of Prague from 1409 to 1423.
In 1817, a young lawyer called Václav Hanka allegedly went to Dvůr Králové nad Labem, and, while in the Church of Saint John the Baptist, found a manuscript from the 13th century (approx).
Given its place of discovery, it became known as the Rukopis královédvorský (RK).
Hanka was granted ownership of the manuscript by the local authorities in 1818, and published it in 1819, complete with modern Czech and German translations.
The RK contained fourteen poems: six epics, six love poems, two lyric epics and a fragment of a larger poem, the remainder of which was missing.
One of the epics was called Záboj, about how Záboj and Slavoj had a victory over a German called Luděk.
One of the characters in the poem was a singer called Lumír, who sang beautifully enough for the people of Vyšehrad to get a bit emotional about it.
None of these individuals are mentioned elsewhere, but Lumír gave his name to the current street – part of which was called Zábojova until 1968.
Along with another manuscript, the supposedly 11th-century Rukopis zelenohorský, which was apparently also discovered in 1817 (but in Zelená Hora), it became popular enough to be published time and again. It even got translated into English.
There was a bit of a problem, though. While some authorities, such as František Palacký, were convinced that the manuscripts were genuine, and were proof of the long, proud tradition of Czech literature, others, such as Josef Dobrovský, were not.
In 1886, a certain Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk became quite vocal about his belief that they were fake. Key Czech philologist Jan Gebauer also disputed their authenticity.
It all got rather heated, and Masaryk was accused of being anti-Czech, but voices suggesting that the manuscripts were authentic gradually died out.
In 1893, the Austrian Ministry for Education classified the manuscripts as ‘modern’ Czech literature (i.e. not ancient).
Between 1968 and 1971, Czech non-fiction writer Miroslav Ivanov headed a team at the Institute of Criminology, using forgery detection methods that hadn’t been available back in the 1880s.
They concluded that both manuscripts were palimpsests. In other words, old pieces of parchments had the original text scraped off them, and somebody wrote new text on there instead.
However, the Czech Manuscript Society, even now, wants to prove that the manuscripts were written in the 11th and 13th centuries, and not by the people who claimed to have randomly discovered them in 1817: https://www.rukopisy-rkz.cz/rkz/csr/
But none of this mess has stopped Lumír from getting his own statue at Vyšehrad, designed by Josef Václav Myslbek. You may recognise it, but here’s the original draft.
During the Nazi occupation, this was Jarlochova, after Jarloch (1165-1228), an abbot who wrote one of the post-Kosmas parts of the Chronica Boemorum.
Speaking of Kosmas’s Chronicle? That’s our source for information about Krok.
Kosmas says that the first Czechs in Bohemia were teetotal, weapon-free and happy to engage in dangerous things like private property. Or marriage.
But then they decided to go off the rails. So Krok, a wise, rich, sophisticated and apparently just plain perfect man*, appeared and became the first duke of the Czechs.
* If you ever see someone on a dating app with this bio, it probably is, indeed, a load of old Krok.
Despite being wise, rich, sophisticated and apparently just plain perfect, Krok also failed to be interesting enough for Kosmas to write anything more about him, except that he had three daughters.
Kazi, the oldest, was an expert in herbs and fortune-telling. She worked as a healer.
Teta, the middle daughter, was a pagan priestess who taught people to worship rivers, trees, stones and forests.
Libuše, the youngest one, was also the smartest, and, when Krok died, she took over.
I won’t reveal what happened next, as it’ll leave me with nothing to write in a few streets’ time, but you won’t be surprised to know that it involves Vyšehrad.
From 1906 to 1940, and again from 1945 to 1948, this was Sámova, after Samo, whose empire, from 623 to 658, is the first known political union of Slavic tribes.
During the Nazi occupation, the street was called Hemina, after Hemma, or Emma (died 1006), wife of Bohemian duke Boleslav II.
Alois Václav Čikl was born in Slavětín in 1900. After finishing school, he took courses at the Czechoslovak Hussite Church in Olomouc, and was ordained as a priest by Bishop Gorazd (pictured) in 1922.
When the Nazis occupied Bohemia and Moravia, Čikl, along with an Orthodox priest, Vladimír Petřek, created falsified baptism certificates for Jews so that they could escape persecution.
They also provided a hiding place for Přemysl Šámal (pictured), a leading resistance figure who had been Chancellor of both Tomáš G. Masaryk and Edvard Beneš.
After Heydrich’s assassination in 1942 (he was attacked in May, and died in June), the Orthodox church provided shelter to both Kubiš and Gabčík in Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral. Čikl and Petřek were among those who helped arrange this.
They were arrested, along with Bishop Gorazd, on 18 June. All three were imprisoned in Pankrác, and executed at the Kobylisy shooting range on 4 September.
Čikl was 42; Petřek was 34; Gorazd (real name Matěj Pavlík) was 63.
Čikl’s wife, Marie, was one of many participants in Operation Anthropoid who was murdered at Mauthausen on 24 October.
