Prague really grew up overnight. In 1922, it received 37 new little brothers
The neighboring villages of Břevnov, Bubeneč, Karlín, Košíře, Královské Vinohrady, Libeň, Nusle, Smíchov, Vršovice, Vysočany, Žižkov were added to the capital overnight.
But that was not all, together with other smaller and smaller municipalities and settlements, there were a total of 37 new Prague siblings. The population tripled, the city grew more than eight times, it had 19 districts with 676 thousand inhabitants and an area of almost 172 square kilometers.
Prague received the official name Capital of Prague. That moment was born a long time ago, definitely longer than since February 1920, when the law on Greater Prague was approved, or since November 1918, when it was presented to the National Assembly.
The goal: a dignified metropolis
For the first step, we can perhaps go as far as February 12, 1784, when the royal capital city of Prague was officially established. Signature of Joseph II. in it, he united four separate Prague cities: Hradčany, Malá Strana, Staré Město and Nové Město.
In the 19th century, they were joined by the Jewish Town, renamed Josefov, Vyšehrad, Holešovice and Bubny. In the first year of the 20th century, Libeň also came. At that time, Prague had an area of 21 square kilometers and about 233 thousand inhabitants.
Transformation of Prague in 100 yearsComparison photo Václav Víšek has a great hobby. According to period pictures, they take pictures of the same places. Thanks to him, we have the opportunity to see changes in a hundred, forty and twenty years. “I’m basically a wanderer who is slowly losing his physicality with age, I don’t climb mountains, so I wander around towns and villages with a camera. I’m from Prague and I use my time as a pensioner,” he admits. |
From the 1870s, it began to fall as a remnant of the wall, the city was modernized, industry started to ramp up more and more aggressively… Prague would like to breathe more, but the neighboring municipalities mostly resisted because they were afraid of losing autonomy and independence. Differences in taxes or national disputes between Czechs and Germans also posed a problem, for example.
Until then, the newly annexed districts had a separate status, they were mostly quite important, Vinohrady even built its own water plant. They were exhibition villages, often with a population of up to 50,000. The loss of municipal privileges was quite fundamental for them.
The situation changed more radically only after the fall of the monarchy, when the domination and competition of Vienna disappeared. Prague has set out to achieve its goal of becoming a worthy metropolis of the young Czechoslovak Republic and ranking among the world’s great cities.
Greater Prague brought new demands on the administration, but at the same time it was also transformed by a new architecture in which constructivism and functionalism prevailed. Entire apartment and villa districts began to grow, schools, factories, hospitals were added, and urban transport took off.
Jarkovský na Hrad
Prague inherited more than fifty cinemas and the first film studios, which the AB company set up more also in the premises of the Měšťanské pivovar in Královské Vinohrady. The famous Červená sedma cabaret soon ended, but it was still drawn to, for example, the Lucerna cabaret, led by Karel Hasler.
Jazz was slowly being heard. Women’s fashion turned from Vienna to Paris, discarding corsets and shortening skirts. Čapek, Wolker or Seifert were read, but Cliftons, Bufalobilky and Evenings under the lamp also spread through the city.
Jiří Stanislav Guth-Jarkovský worked at the Castle as the president’s master of ceremonies. With a fresh university diploma, the first architect Milada Petříková Pavlíková and the first chemist Helena Fišerová started working.
Football remained the number 1 sport. AC Sparta with the star Karel Pešek, known as Káďa, who also scored points in hockey. Its traditional competitor SK Slavia alias stitching. Bohemka lived in Ďolíček in Vršovice, not far from the later stadium, and Viktorka from Žižkov lived at the other end of Prague.
Otakar Jandera, later known as the “father” of Jandera, was rising to the top of athletics. Marie Mejzlíková switched from handball to athletics and over time she collected five world records in it. Alžběta Pospíšilová, later car racer Eliška Junková, married her Čeňk and got her driver’s license.
But they were also born in many places emergency colonies from the huts of those who were attracted from the countryside by the idea of a job chance, and their hopes were not fulfilled.
Prague turned into a city full of promises and problems, as few could have imagined on that morning on January 1, 1922.
Great Prague
On January 1, 1922, 37 surrounding municipalities or their parts were annexed to Prague: Bohnice, Braník, Břevnov, Bubeneč, Dejvice, Hloubětín, Hlubočepy, Hodkovičky, Hostivař, Hrdlořezy, Malá Chuchle, Jinonice, Karlín, Kobylisy, Košíře, Krč, Liboc, Malešice, Michle, Motol, Nusle, Podolí, Prosek, Radlice, Sedlec, Smíchov, Strašnice, Střešovice, Střížkov, Troja, Veleslavín, Královské Vinohrady, Vokovice, Vršovice, Vysočany, Záběhlice, Zátiší and Žižkov.
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