Melantrich Balcony & Hotel Evropa: A Square Full of Keys
Why is it significant?
Find number 36 and look up at the balcony on its upper floor. It is not grand, not baroque, not even very large. And yet in November 1989 it was the most important stage in Central Europe.
Key Facts
| Place | Melantrich Balcony & Hotel Evropa: A Square Full of Keys |
|---|---|
| Address | Václavské náměstí 36, 110 00 Praha 1, Czechia |
| Geo Coordinates | 50.08200, 14.42640 |
| Part of Walk | Wenceslas Square to the Dancing House: Prague's Century of Revolutions, 1918–1989 |
| Generated | Generated |
Find number 36 and look up at the balcony on its upper floor. It is not grand, not baroque, not even very large. And yet in November 1989 it was the most important stage in Central Europe.
The building belonged to the Melantrich publishing house, which printed the newspaper of the Socialist Party, one of the small parties allowed to exist beside the Communists. After the police attacked the students on 17 November, the newspaper's staff did something extraordinary: they offered this balcony, and its loudspeakers, to the opposition.
From 20 November, the square filled every afternoon. Hundreds of thousands of people stood from the museum all the way down to where you are, in the cold. On 21 November, Václav Havel spoke from the balcony. Then, on 24 November, a thin, elderly man stepped out beside him: Alexander Dubček, the face of the Prague Spring, banished for twenty years to a job in the forestry service. The roar was deafening. That same evening, the Communist Party leadership resigned.
And then there were the keys. Hundreds of thousands of people took out their key rings and shook them over their heads, all at once. It was the sound of a bell, of a door being unlocked, and also a message to the men at the top: your time is up, go home. By 29 December, Havel was president.
Now turn around and look across the square at the most beautiful facade on it, the Hotel Evropa, all gilded nymphs and stained glass, finished in the early 1900s. It is pure Art Nouveau, a monument to the confident, coffee-drinking Prague that existed before any of these revolutions. When you are ready, slip into the arcades a few doors along, which lead into the Lucerna palace. Somewhere inside, Saint Wenceslas is waiting on his horse again... and he is having a much worse day than on the square.