What's in a Prague street name

Every street in Prague, one by one.

recent posts (search bar on main page for about a gazillion more)

I could talk about myself for ages, or I could point out that https://english.radio.cz/ed-ley-englishman-recording-stories-pragues-streets-one-one-8806941 is over two years old but still largely stands (other than the Twitter links).

  • Prague 2, day 48: Uruguayská

    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.

    No, hang on, wait, I’ve got something awesome.

    A Czech couple, Tomáš and Ladislav, opened a cafe called che.co.fee in Montevideo in 2017: https://www.elpais.com.uy/vida-actual/dos-checos-escaparon-de-la-rutina-de-su-pais-abriendo-un-cafe-en-uruguay.

    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.

    The fact that it has a 4.8 rating on Google and Instagram followers in the teen-thousands implies that is must be very good, too: https://www.instagram.com/che.co.ffee/?hl=en

    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!

  • Prague 2, day 47: Záhřebská

    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.

    The Czechs and the Slovaks elect a special representative to the Croatian Parliament (Sabor) – but it seems they only get one between them: https://www.sabor.hr/en/members-parliament/bilek-vladimir-10-term

    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)

    Milunić died in September 2022: https://www.irozhlas.cz/zpravy-domov/milunic-architekt-smrt-tancicic-dum_2209171455_mst

    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.

  • Prague 2, day 46: Jana Masaryka

    Originally published on Twitter on 22 December 2022.

    Jana Masaryka was built in 1875.

    Until 1884, this was Wimmerova, after Jakub Wimmer (1754-1822), entrepreneur, landowner, benefactor and colonel.

    Then it was renamed Čelakovského after František Ladislav Čelakovský (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/02/18/prague-2-day-35-celakovskeho-sady/).

    In 1926, the street was renamed Polská. Which means that I have to retract this tweet from a few weeks ago: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/01/27/prague-2-day-14-polska/

    (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:

    A 2021 investigation – the sixth – didn’t discount any of the three: https://www.novinky.cz/clanek/domaci-smrt-jana-masaryka-kriminaliste-v-dalsim-vysetrovani-neobjasnili-40353297

    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.

  • Prague 2, day 45: Francouzská

    Originally published on Twitter on 21 December 2022.

    Francouzská was built in 1884.

    Like Anglická (and Moskevská in Prague 10), this was formerly part of the highway leading to Vršovice: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/03/02/prague-2-day-39-anglicka/.

    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.

    Then, in 1918, France became the first country to recognise the newly founded state of Czechoslovakia: https://francais.radio.cz/le-role-joue-par-la-france-dans-la-creation-de-letat-tchecoslovaque-independant-8590728

    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.

    There’s a clip of how this was reported by Czechoslovak state television on https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/clanek/domaci/pred-30-lety-se-snidalo-u-mitterranda-husak-musel-pockat-prednost-dostal-havel-321755.

    And, of course, the rotating presidency of the European Union means that both of the last two French presidencies have been immediately followed by a Czech one: https://wayback.archive-it.org/12090/20221120094407/https://presidence-francaise.consilium.europa.eu/fr/

    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.

    Please allow me a minute to wonder why I’m learning all this *after* last week’s post (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/03/02/prague-2-day-40-belehradska/).

    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.

    Meanwhile, remember these two (whom one can describe as ‘polémiques’) dying of COVID-19 in January 2022: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59867046?

    Their mother, the catchily-named Maria “Maya” Dolores Franzyska Kolowrat-Krakowská, was of Bohemian descent.

  • Prague 2, day 44: Šubertova

    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.

  • Prague 2, day 43: Ibsenova

    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.

  • Prague 2, day 42: Náměstí Míru

    Originally published on Twitter on 18 December 2022.

    Náměstí Míru – Peace Square in English, Mirák to locals – was built in 1884.

    Until 1926, it was called Purkyňovo náměstí after Jan Evangelista Purkyně (1787-1869), anatomist, physiologist and coiner of the word ‘protoplasm’.

    Then, in 1926, when Vinohrady underwent its Allied Renaming Extravaganza (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/12/23/prague-2-day-1-italska/), it became Mírové náměstí, which translates to English the same way Náměstí Míru does.

    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:

    There’s also the National House / Národní dům, designed by Antonín Turek (see https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/12/23/prague-3-day-186-u-vodarny/ and https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/02/15/prague-2-day-30-u-trznice/) and built in 1893-4.

    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).

  • Prague 2, day 41: Londýnská

    Originally published on Twitter on 17 December 2022.

    Londýnská was built in 1875.

    From 1875 to 1884, this was Tunelová, named after the tunnel under the street, connecting the main train station with the one in Nusle.

    Then it became Hálkova until 1926, after Vítězslav Hálek (1835-74), a poet, writer and journalist who was one of the key figures of the May School.

    From 1940 to 1945, the street was named Mnichovská, after Munich. In a clear case of occupiers sucking (yet again), they didn’t even have the foresight to call it Dublinská (see https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/03/02/prague-2-day-39-anglicka/).

    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.

    We covered two 17th-century Czech residents of London in the Prague 3 series – Václav Hollar (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/02/28/prague-3-day-163-hollarovo-namesti/) and Jan Amos Komenský (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2022/11/26/prague-3-day-82-komenskeho-namesti/).

    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.

    The Czech Embassy building in London, built by a Czech team, could… well, bring a little more joy than it does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_Czech_Republic,_London#/media/File:Czech_Embassy_London_01965.JPG

    The Czech Centre isn’t a stunner, either, but its programme is reliably awesome: https://london.czechcentres.cz/en/program

    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.

  • Prague 2, day 40: Bělehradská

    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.

    Then, from 1880 until the Great Geographical Renaming Funday of 1926, it was Havlíčkova, after Karel Karel Havlíček Borovský: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2022/12/26/prague-3-day-122-havlickovo-namesti/

    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.

    These days, Češko Selo doesn’t even have a school or – you may want to sit down for this – a pub, and the road leading to/from the village is over forty years old and not in the best condition: https://www.danas.rs/vesti/drustvo/nema-prodavnicu-i-skolu-ali-zato-ima-muzej-najmanje-selo-u-vojvodini-i-jedino-gde-su-cesi-i-dalje-vecina/

    Bela Crkva’s local radio station has an hour-long Czech broadcast on Monday evenings: https://radiobelacrkva.rs/programska-sema/

    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.

  • Prague 2, day 39: Anglická

    Originally published on Twitter on 15 December 2022.

    Anglickáwas built in its current form between 1867 and 1878.

    Historically, there was a highway (if that’s the term) leading from Žitná brána (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/02/27/prague-2-day-36-zitna/) to the then village of Vršovice.

    From 1878, it was named Palackého after František Palacký, figurehead of the Czech National Revival. It then became Anglická in 1926 (a quick reminder of how this happened: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/12/23/prague-2-day-1-italska/).

    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)

    Comedian and writer Helen Lederer was born in Wales in 1954 to an English mother and a Czech-Jewish father. He, Arnošt Lederer, had been born in Teplice in 1926: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/9261753/Helen-Lederer-My-cousin-the-survivor.html

    We briefly touched upon actress Helena Bonham Carter’s Czech-Jewish origins on her mother’s side here: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/12/24/prague-2-day-6-helenska/

    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.

    He, his sister and his father collaborated with BBC Radio 3 on a documentary about his father’s escape in 1939: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5tDSTqRDXlNHgkCQHsNCFmw/saving-the-hollanders

    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.

  • Prague 2, day 38: Vocelova

    Originally published on Twitter on 14 December 2022.

    Vocelova was built in 1884.

    Jan Erazim Wotzel was born in Kutná Hora in 1802. He studied in both Prague and Vienna, and, at some point in these years, adapted his surname to its Czech form, Vocel.

    In Prague, he also befriended František Palacký.

    Upon graduating, he worked as a tutor, for example to the noble Czernin family (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2022/11/19/prague-3-day-21-cerninova/).

    In the 1840s in Prague, he became friendly with key Czech patriots, including Josef Jungmann.

    This group encouraged him to found the Archaeological Society in 1843, when he also became editor of the magazine of the National Museum (Časopis Národního muzea, or Muzejník).

    In 1848, he briefly entered the Austrian Constituent Assembly as an MP, representing Polička.

    In 1850, he became Associate Professor of Archeology and Art History at Charles University.

    Four years later, he founded Památky archaeologické a místópisné (Archaeological and topographical monuments) along with Karel Václav Zap.

    Perhaps his best known work was Prehistory of the Czech Lands / Pravěk země české,  published in two volumes in 1866 and 1868.

    Vocel died of pneumonia in 1871, and is buried in Olšany Cemetery.

  • Prague 2, day 37: Mikovcova

    Originally published on Twitter on 13 December 2022.

    Mikovcova was built in 1884.

    Ferdinand Mikovetz was born in Sloup v Čechách / Bürgstein (near Česká Lípa) in 1826.

    Despite being born into a German-speaking family, he became fascinated by Czech patriotism during his school years.

    In the early 1840s, he studied history and art history. Around this time, he adopted the doesn’t-get-more-Czech name of Břetislav.

    He joined the Repeal association, which was inspired by Irish nationalists.

    Repeal most famously held a meeting at Svatováclavské lázně on 11 March 1848, where the first Prague Petition, demanding additional rights for Czechs, was written and addressed to Ferdinand V.

    In June of the same year, Mikovec would be one of those standing on the barricades during the Prague Uprising, which was suppressed by the army.

    After this, he fled south to take part in the Serb uprising of 1848–49.

    Returning to Prague, in 1851 he founded Lumír, a weekly magazine aiming to increase the prestige of Czech literature. It was published, with breaks, until 1940.

    He was also involved in the completion of St Vitus’ Cathedral, and founded Arkadia, a literary and artistic association.

    This picture by Vojtěch Bartoněk shows Mikovec and Josef Mánes at Arkadia. I haven’t confirmed whether this meeting happened (the picture is dated over 20 years after the death of both men).

    Mikovec published the first volume of his work on Czech monuments (Starožitnosti a Památky země České) in 1860.

    However, congenital heart problems meant that he was never able to produce the second one.

    In 1861, he was so ill that his mother had to move in with him (on present-day Lublaňská). He died in the following year, aged just 35.

    The second volume of Starožitnosti a Památky země České was published in 1862 by a colleague, Karel Václav Zap.

  • Prague 2, day 36: Žitná

    Originally published on Twitter on 12 December 2022.

    Žitná was built between the 15th and 18th centuries, possibly making this one 400 years older than any other street we’ve covered so far.

    Žitná is the feminine form of the adjective stemming from žito, rye. (I guess I’ve never mentioned that these streets are almost all feminine because ulice is too? If not, I’m mentioning it now)

    Prague’s and-yet-we-still-call-it New Town was founded by Karel IV in 1348, and a rye market subsequently existed here.

    What is now Žitná was once two roads – what is now the western half was already called Žitná, whereas the eastern part was called Na Rybničku (now the name of another local street, coming up soon enough).

    They were united as Žitnobranská in the 18th century, becoming just plain Žitná in 1869.

    Žitná brana – the rye gate – was created at the same time as the new city fortifications in the late 17th century.

    In 1827, Karel Chotek, Supreme Burgrave of Bohemia, established a promenade, Na Šancích, that led through this gate (among others). Eventually, a park was opened here, with two concert venues.

    You might have guessed that Chotek would also open Chotkovy sady five years later.

    This photo of the Rye Gate is from about 1875; however, in the same year, the process of demolishing the city walls started, and the gate obviously went with them.

    Žitná is now split between Prague 1 (its northern side) and Prague 2 (its southern side).

    On the Prague 2 side, a memorial was unveiled – just four days ago – to Karel Janšta, who fled Czechoslovakia in 1939 and moved to Britain, where he became an RAF pilot.

    He became a member of the Czechoslovak State Council in London.

    When he returned to Czechoslovakia, Edvard Beneš saw him as a potential Minister of Defence; the Communists, however, banned him from continuing in the Air Force and forced him to become an asphalt worker.

    Janšta lived in this house on Žitná until his death in 1986. A report on his life and the new memorial is on https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/domaci/3549553

    I wasn’t aware of this on Friday – I just took a photo of the memorial yesterday (Sunday) because it looked interesting, and then got home and read the rest.

    This is the perfect encapsulation of why it is such a joy to be writing these threads.

  • Prague 2, day 35: Čelakovského sady

    Originally published on Twitter on 11 December 2022.

    Čelakovského sady was/were (sady – gardens – is plural) built in 1882.

    František Ladislav Čelakovský was born in Strakonice in 1799.

    After graduating from the gymnasium in České Budějovice, he moved to Prague to study philosophy.

    Financial constraints forced him to drop out and continue his studies at the lyceum in České Budějovice, but he was expelled when found reading the works of Jan Hus.

    He then studied in Linz, and returned to Prague to study at Charles University, although he failed one of his final exams and never graduated (although that wouldn’t stop him from becoming a professor at CU in 1835).

    In the following years, he supported himself as a tutor, translator and proofreader.

    Čelakovský also wrote poems under a pseudonym, Žofie Jandová, and collected Slavic folklore and poems, for example in Slovanské národní písně (three volumes published between 1822 and 1827).

    On the non-Slavic side, he also collected Lithuanian songs in Litevské národní písně (1827).

    In 1833, he became editor of Pražské noviny, and transformed one of its supplement, Česká Wčela (Czech Bee), into an independent magazine.

    In 1835, Tsar Nicholas II said that, if the Poles tried to rebel, he would see to it that Warsaw would be destroyed. Čelakovský published an article about this, and pointed out that the Tatar khans had made a similar threat to the Russians in the 15th century.

    The Russian Embassy complained*, and Čelakovský was fired both from the paper and from his professorship.

    * In 2022, complaining remains one of their few talents, along with having too many staff and generally being awful.

    He would eventually regain his professorship in 1849, having taught in Wrocław in the interim.

    Čelakovský died in 1852, aged 53, shortly after the death of his second wife, Antonie.

    Josef František Frič, the couple’s brother-in-law, became guardian of Čelakovský’s children, who included the botanist Ladislav Josef Čelakovský (1834-1902) and the historian and politician Jaromír Čelakovský (1846-1914).

    They… definitely looked related.

    The park was one of several victims of the expansion of the highway that we know as Legerova / Wilsonova, as, in the 1970s, it got split in two.

    When the National Museum was given a major facelift in the later part of the 2010s, Čelakovského sady also benefitted.

    Here’s a video by Prague 1, mid-reconstruction:

    It was finally completed in August of this year: https://www.prazskypatriot.cz/praha-2-dokoncila-revitalizaci-jihovychodni-casti-celakovskeho-sadu / https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=596031598744290, and has definitely made walking from Prague 2 to Prague 1 a lot more pleasant.

  • Prague 2, day 34: Škrétova

    Originally published on Twitter on 10 December 2022.

    Škrétova was built around 1875.

    Much like Rubešova (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/02/18/prague-2-day-33-rubesova/), and for similar reasons. the street was once longer, but now exists in redux form.

    Karel Škréta Šotnovský ze Závořic (self-portrait below), the youngest of seven children, was born in the house named U černého jelena on Týnská in the Old Town, i.e. Currently Tourist Central, in 1610.

    The family fled into exile after the Battle of Bílá Hora in 1620. In the early years of adulthood, Škréta spent time in Bologna, Florence, Venice and Rome.

    He became a portrait painter, strongly influenced by the Italian style.

    *briefly wonders if it’s a coincidence that this street and Římská (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/02/18/prague-2-day-32-rimska/) lead into each other*

    He returned to Prague in 1638 – a return facilitated by his conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism and his willingness to make religious paintings.

    Škréta then became the most important Czech Baroque painter of the 17th century.

    His paintings often placed people in theatrical costumes, or in mythological stories.

    Here we have Paris and Helen, Portrait of a Miniaturist, The Mathematician and His Wife, and Gem-cutter Dionysio Miseroni and his Family.

    Here we have his 1640 representation of the birth of St Wenceslas, as well as his 1660 painting of the same on the throne.

    As well as his portraits, Škréta created altarpieces and other works for cathedrals in Bohemia, including Týnský chrám, and Kostel svatého Prokopa on Sladkovského náměstí (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/01/13/prague-3-day-132-sladkovskeho-namesti/).

    Škréta broke one of the cardinal rules of my posts about streets named after artists by not dying particularly young for the time or particularly tragically (he died in 1674 and is buried in the Kostel svatého Havla / Church of St. Gallen in the Old Town).

    He was known to have a hot temper, though, and one fight reputedly ended with his opponent getting killed.

    This story inspired two 19th century pieces, both named Karel Škréta – a comedy by Václav Alois Svoboda (1841) and an opera by Karel Bendl (1883).

    I have a particular fondness for Škréta’s 1648 drawing of the Siege of Prague.

  • Prague 2, day 33: Rubešova

    Originally published on Twitter on 9 December 2022.

    Rubešova was built before 1884, and the history of the road is slightly complicated.

    Part of the street, while created around the same time, was originally called Resslova, after Josef Ressel, who was briefly mentioned here as he was a native of Chrudim: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/06/24/prague-3-day-177-chrudimska/

    While, in 1895, a street called Husova was created to join the two.

    For those who are interested, there are 3,927 separate threads about Jan Hus and his merry men in the Prague 3 series.

    All three streets joined as one in 1928.

    From 1940 to 1945, the street was called Rollerova, after Julius Roller (1862-1946), a Czech-Austrian lawyer who twice served as the Austrian Minister of Justice between 1918 and 1920.

    xcept that, when the nearby highway was built/developed, the Husova part became part of Legerova (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/12/24/prague-2-day-8-legerova/), the Resslova part became U divadla (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/01/05/prague-2-day-10-u-divadla/) and Rubešova went back to its original form.

    Anyway, František Jaromír Rubeš was born in Čížkov, Vysočina in 1814. His family moved to Kolín upon the death of his father, a brewer.

    He went to Prague to study philosophy, and entered the seminary, then deciding this wasn’t for him, so he became a tutor and also studied law, graduating in 1847.

    n 1841, he became the chief author of Paleček, the first humorous Czech magazine (named after Jiří z Poděbrad’s jester).

    He contributed until 1845; the magazine folded two years later, partly because readers missed his input.

    He also published various novella, most famously Pan Amanuensis na venku, aneb putování za novelou (Mr. Amanuensis on the outside, or wandering for a novella). Not to suggest it was based on his own experiences, but it was about a law graduate who was also a budding writer.

    In 1848, Rubeš hid poet Josef Václav Frič in his apartment in Načeradec, as the latter was wanted by the Habsburg authorities after organising fighting on the barricades during the Prague Uprising of 1848.

    After losing his interest in literature, Rubeš worked in law. He was working as a court clerk in 1853, when he died in Skuteč, near Chrudim, of a hereditary lung condition. He was 39.

    This is a picture of his grave there by Václav Jansa (1859-1913).

  • Prague 2, day 32: Římská

    Originally published on Twitter on 8 December 2022.

    Římská was built in 1884.

    Řím is Rome. And yet I’m writing this from the airport in Athens. I bet there’s a Latin or a Greek word for this.

    Awesome sunrise from where I’m sitting right now, too.

    Until 1926, the street – which was shorter at the time – was called Brandlova, after Petr Jan Brandl (1668-1735), a Czech Baroque painter (self-portrait from 1700 below).

    It took an awful lot of research, but I eventually managed to establish that Rome is the capital of Italy. If you’re wondering what an ‘Italy’ is, then please refer to https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/12/23/prague-2-day-1-italska/.

    That thread also explains the Great Allied Renaming Frenzy of 1926. And also explains why I’m a bit stumped for new material for this post.

    I’ll try anyway.

    Prague and Rome are twinned.

    And the Vatican News has a Czech version: https://vaticannews.va/cs.html.

    I also started looking for Czech restaurants in Rome, and saw one with really good reviews before realising it was in Turin.

    Finally, this list of false friends between Czech and Italian may result in you never hearing ano* or kozy the same way ever again. Let alone a mountain round with curva after curva on it. https://www.berightback.it/false-friends-falsi-amici-italiano-ceco/

    * As if that word hadn’t already been sullied by AB.

    One more: got a friend in Italy who you need to get a Christmas present for? Here’s the ‘leader italiano nell’importazione di birre ed alcoolici dalla Repubblica Ceca’: https://birraceca.it/

    ‘Il leader’. Crikey.

  • Prague 2, day 31: Sázavská

    Originally published on Twitter on 7 December 2022.

    Sázavská was built in 1889.

    Sázava is the name both of a river in the Vysočina and Central Bohemian regions, and of a town of 3,700 people on its banks, in the Benešov district.

    The proto-Slavic verb sázeti means something like ‘to depose a lot of sediment’.

    The verb is much more attractive than the phrase, isn’t it?

    The suffix -ava comes from the Indo-European apa or opa, meaning water or sea. Hence Morava, Opava, Otava and Vltava – and, extending this to places located on rivers, Ostrava.

    I’m also going to assume this is how German ended up with the Moldau and the Donau, among others.

    The river originates in the Žďárské vrchy, a mountain range that’s in the Bohemian Massif. It meanders from there through various towns, the largest of which are Žďár nad Sázavou (obviously) and Havlíčkův Brod.

    (Painting by Ludwig Förster, 1798-1863)

    After 226 kilometres, it meets the Vltava, just south of Prague. This part of the river has a distinctive colour due to the clay-based nature of the soil, leading some to call it the Zlatá řeka, or the Golden River.

    It’s very popular with adventure sport enthusiasts, especially around Stvořidla, a stretch of whitewater, although that part is not always navigable.

    The Týnec–Pikovice section also receives a lot of footfall (Canoefall? Or just waterfall?).

    As for the town, it was established on the site of the Sázava Monastery, founded by Břetislav I in 1032, and home to St Prokop’s hermetic community.

    It was very predictably destroyed in the Hussite Wars, before being revived, but was ultimately closed in 1785.

    The monastery is a location in the 2018 video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which is set in Bohemia in 1403 and has been praised for being quite historically accurate. And has sold over 5 million copies.

    The town is also known for its glassworks, nowadays known as Kavalierglass, Inc., founded by František Kavalír and now over 180 years old: https://www.kavalier.cz/en/company/history.html.

    Their work is also part of the National Theatre and two stations of the Prague Metro.

    Sázava’s most famous son (who didn’t die in 1053, that is) is Jiří Voskovec (1905-81), a founder of the Osvobozené divadlo (Liberated Theatre) who left for the United States in 1939 along with Jan Werich.

    Swapping Jiří for George, he would star in classic films such as 12 Angry Men (1957), The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965) and The Boston Strangler (1968).

    And, of course, the Liberated Theatre was where Voskovec and Werich collaborated with Jaroslav Ježek, subject of one of my favourite streets to write about in the Prague 3 series: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/01/14/prague-3-day-136-jezkova/

  • Prague 2, day 30: U Tržnice

    Originally published on Twitter on 6 December 2022.

    Building started around 1903, with the street actually getting its name in 1920.

    Formerly the location for a factory that produced mill machinery, the ‘Vinohrady market hall’ was designed by architect Antonín Turek, and was built between 1901 to 1903.

    Vinohrady has quite a lot to thank Turek for – for one thing, he was responsible for designing the Vinohrady Water Tower two decades earlier (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/12/23/prague-3-day-186-u-vodarny/).

    In the 1890s, he designed the Národní dům on Náměstí míru, where he would also play a role in the concept for the Vinohrady Theatre (which opened in 1907). Photos of both are coming in a few streets’ time.

    The hall had over 100 different food stalls; it closed in the 1980s and was apparently burned down in 1986, although I can’t find any footage of this.

    What I can find is proof that, unlike its current bright colours, it used to be green: https://aaheta.cz/pages/main.php?show=projinfo&lng=cz&id_proj=46

    The building was reopened as one of post-communist Prague’s first shopping centres – Pavilon – in 1994.

    Its shops sell ‘things you buy despite not always knowing what they are, and not having the money, because they might look awesome at home, and then you realise they don’t fit in with any of your furniture’ variety.

    Apart from the Albert downstairs. That’s of the, well, Albert variety.

  • Prague 2, day 29: Slovenská

    Originally published on Twitter on 5 December 2022.

    Slovenská was built around 1900.

    As with Moravia, I don’t want to do a ‘this is the history of […] in 15-20 tweets’ thing. So this seems like a good opportunity to remember that the Velvet Revolution happened in Slovakia too.

    The Slovaks prefer to call it the nežná revolúcia – the gentle revolution.

    In August 1989, five people were arrested because they’d informed the Slovak government that they intended to place flowers where Warsaw Pact soldiers had killed demonstrators in 1968.

    They were Ján Čarnogurský, Miroslav Kusý, Hana Ponická, Anton Selecký and Vladimír Maňák. Čarnogurský would head the Slovak government from 1991-2.

    They became known as the Bratislava Five (Bratislavská päťka). A petition circulated for their release.

    In October, Milan Kňažko, a famous actor – and later a Minister of Culture and of Foreign Affairs in an independent Slovakia – submitted a letter to the government, giving up the title of ‘meritorious artist’ (most Soviet award title ever) in protest against the regime.

    On Wednesday, 16 November, 150-300 students held a protest on Hodžovo námestie (then Mierové námestie). The protest was mainly in favour of academic freedom, but also in favour of the release of Ján Čarnogurský.

    When the security forces arrived, they started a procession to Šafárikovo námestie, where student Danka Košanová had been shot in 1968.

    She was fifteen. Fifteen.

    The security forces ultimately allowed the students to leave; the protesters were probably lucky that the police were more concerned about a certain demonstration due to take place in Prague on the 17th.

    On the 18th, reeling from the events in Prague and the (ultimately fictitious) reports that a student, Martin Šmíd (also fictitious), had been killed, activists met secretly in apartments in Bratislava.

    The Hungarian Independent Initiative, representing Slovakia’s Hungarians, was founded in Šaľa on the same day.

    A further meeting of dissidents took place at Bratislava’s Umelecká beseda slovenská on the 19th. This was the impetus for the formation of the Verejnosť proti násiliu (VPN) – the Public Against Violence – Slovakia’s counterpart to the Civic Forum: https://www.tyzden.sk/spolocnost/78549/bratislavska-umelecka-beseda-den-prvy/

    The first mass demonstrations in Bratislava started on the 20th. On the same day, the students of Comenius University formed a strike committee. Theatres, as well as other universities, followed suit.

    Here’s footage from Námestie SNP on the 22nd:

    The sound system had been provided by Tublatanka, one of Slovakia’s top rock bands.

    And here’s demonstration footage from Bratislava, Košice and Banská Bystrica in that week:

    Slovak state television started showing these demonstrations uncensored; on the 24th, they broadcast the first free discussion between the opposition and the communists that had ever been shown on Czechoslovakian television.

    President Husák granted amnesty to Ján Čarnogurský and Miroslav Kusý, among others, on the following day (the 25th), and Bratislava’s Pravda newspaper joined the opposition ranks on the 26th.

    While all eyes were on Letná in Prague on the 25th, (see the clip below – it has Bratislava footage about seven minutes in), it was also the day that the VPN issued its list of twelve demands.

    This video shows Havel making a speech in Košice in November 1989, but I haven’t been able to establish the exact date.

    I assume it was around the 29th, as he, Marta Kubišová and others had attended a round table of the OF and the VPN at the National Theatre in Bratislava that day.

    Or was it actually in December? I’ve seen plenty mentions of a visit by Havel to Košice then.

    On 6 December, the Vlak nežnej revolúcie (Train of the Gentle Revolution) went from Bratislava to Košice via Źilina. Students, actors and other cultural representatives got out along the route to give presentations about the revolution and its aims.

    Great pics of the train are on https://1989.sng.sk/vlak-neznej-revolucie… – which gives a brilliant and highly detailed day-by-day breakdown of revolution-related events too.

    Husák swore in a government where the majority of members weren’t communists on 10 December, and resigned shortly afterwards; the government had a Slovak, Marián Čalfa, at its head.

    Slovakia itself would get a non-communist government two days later, headed by Milan Čič.

    I don’t know if Slovaks say vďaka, že môžeme. But that doesn’t stop me from saying it.

    So: vďaka, že môžeme. Big time.

    But it would’ve been nice if Danka Košanová had been around to witness it.