Kinský Palace: A Schoolboy, a Pacifist and a Vanished Man
Why is it significant?
Find the pink and white Rococo palace on the eastern side of Old Town Square, just to the left of the dark towers of the Týn church, with stucco ornament like icing on a cake and a balcony above the entrance. Three very different stories, all of them about words, begin behind that facade.
Key Facts
| Place | Kinský Palace: A Schoolboy, a Pacifist and a Vanished Man |
|---|---|
| Address | Staroměstské nám. 606/12, 110 00 Praha 1, Czechia |
| Geo Coordinates | 50.08810, 14.42190 |
| Part of Walk | Kafka's Prague: A Literary Walk Through the Writers' City |
| Generated | Generated |
Find the pink and white Rococo palace on the eastern side of Old Town Square, just to the left of the dark towers of the Týn church, with stucco ornament like icing on a cake and a balcony above the entrance. Three very different stories, all of them about words, begin behind that facade.
The first is a schoolboy. From 1893 to 1901 the palace housed the German grammar school of the Old Town, and Franz Kafka sat in its classrooms for eight years, learning Latin and Greek and quietly convinced, as he later wrote, that he would fail every exam. He never did. Later his father Hermann moved his fancy goods shop to the ground floor of the same building. The shop sign is said to have carried a jackdaw... in Czech, a kavka.
The second story is a girl born in this very palace in 1843: Countess Bertha Kinsky. As Bertha von Suttner she wrote Lay Down Your Arms, a novel that shocked Europe with its picture of war, and she kept nudging her friend Alfred Nobel towards a prize for peace. In 1905 she became the first woman to receive it.
The third story belongs to the balcony. On 21 February 1948, Klement Gottwald stood up there in the snow and addressed a huge crowd during the communist takeover. It was cold, and his comrade Vladimír Clementis put his own fur hat on Gottwald's bare head. The photograph went around the country. Four years later Clementis was hanged after a show trial, and the propagandists erased him from the picture... all that remained of him was the hat on Gottwald's head. Milan Kundera opens The Book of Laughter and Forgetting with exactly this scene.
A novelist, a pacifist and a man who was made to disappear, all on one facade. Today the palace belongs to the National Gallery. Now walk back across the square, past the great Jan Hus monument, and through little Malé náměstí and Linhartská lane to Mariánské náměstí, where a public library hides a tower of books.