Carolinum & Estates Theatre: Diplomas, Don Giovanni and an Anthem
Why is it significant?
Your last stop is a delicate Gothic bay window, a stone oriel with pointed arches and carved tracery, jutting out from the wall of the building on Železná street.
Key Facts
| Place | Carolinum & Estates Theatre: Diplomas, Don Giovanni and an Anthem |
|---|---|
| Address | Železná 541/9, 110 00 Praha 1, Czechia |
| Geo Coordinates | 50.08610, 14.42290 |
| Part of Walk | Kafka's Prague: A Literary Walk Through the Writers' City |
| Generated | Generated |
Your last stop is a delicate Gothic bay window, a stone oriel with pointed arches and carved tracery, jutting out from the wall of the building on Železná street. It belonged to the chapel of the Carolinum, the historic heart of Charles University, founded by Emperor Charles IV in 1348, the oldest university in Central Europe.
In 1882 the university split in two, a Czech one and a German one, sharing the same history and refusing to share almost anything else. On 18 June 1906, at the German university, Franz Kafka received his doctorate in law. He had chosen law almost by default, the safe path for a merchant's son. A decade earlier another Prague-born poet, the young Rainer Maria Rilke, had enrolled here briefly before leaving the city for good.
Now turn to the elegant green and white building next door, the Estates Theatre, opened in 1783. On 29 October 1787 Mozart himself conducted the premiere of Don Giovanni on its stage. Prague adored Mozart when Vienna was lukewarm, and he knew it... he is said to have remarked that his Praguers understood him.
And in 1834, in the same theatre, a comedy by Josef Kajetán Tyl, The Fiddler's Feast, had its first night. In it, an old blind fiddler sings a gentle song beginning Kde domov můj... Where is my home. The play is mostly forgotten, but the song became the Czech national anthem. A country's anthem born as a number in a popular comedy: that tells you a great deal about this city.
So the walk closes here, between a stage where an opera and an anthem were born and a university where Kafka became a lawyer and Rilke a runaway. Within a short walk of this corner, Hus, Jungmann, Seifert, Havel and Kafka all found their words. Prague does not let go, Kafka wrote. After today, perhaps you understand why.