Malá Strana

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Malá Strana" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Czech. (March 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Czech Wikipedia article at [[:cs:Malá Strana]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|cs|Malá Strana}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Malá Strana (Czech for "Little Side (of the River)", German: Prager Kleinseite) or more formally Menší Město pražské (English: Lesser Town of Prague) is a district of the city of Prague, Czech Republic, and one of its most historic neighbourhoods.

In the

.

Name

The name Malá Strana literally means "Little Side", though it is frequently referred to as "Lesser Town", "Lesser Quarter", or "Lesser Side". It is on the left (west) bank of the river Vltava, on the slopes just below Prague Castle. The name distinguishes it from the larger districts of Prague on the right bank, with which it is linked by the Charles Bridge.

Originally, when it was founded in 1257, the district was called the New Town beneath Prague Castle (Czech: Nové Město pod Pražským hradem). When Charles IV founded the New Town of Prague in 1348, Malá Strana was renamed the Lesser Town of Prague (Czech: Menší Město pražské). In the 17th century, the unofficial name Little Quarter (Czech: Malá Strana) was used.^[1]

History

Malá Strana was founded by the King Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1257.^[1] As a royal town (a town founded by the king) it got many privileges. It was created by amalgamating a number of settlements beneath the Prague Castle into a single administrative unit. The original residents were expelled and mostly German craftsmen and merchants were invited by the king. Even though the city was royal, the king did not master the city as a whole.^{[citation needed]}

In the second half of the 14th century the Lesser Town of Prague was extended by the

In 1419–1420 the Lesser Town was burnt down by

The market place, now known as Malostranské náměstí (Lesser Town Square),[2] was the center of the town. This square is divided into the upper and lower parts with the St. Nicholas Church in the middle.

Architecture

. Baroque architecture eventually dominated when the style was implanted on Malá Strana after the destructive fires in 1541.

Points of interest

• The most extensive building of the Baroque Era on Malá Strana is the Wallenstein Palace. Albrecht von Wallenstein was a military general-in-chief of Emperor Ferdinand II. Under his order 26 new houses and old gates were built on the freed place. The extensive palace complex with five courtyards and the garden, which is set as a French Park.
• The churches are the most frequent and interesting developments on Malá Strana. The finest one and the most prominent is the
  St. Nicholas
  , the defender of children, seamen, and wayfollowers. This painting is set in the dome. It depicts an apotheosis of Saint Trinity.
• The famous statue of the Holy
  Roman Catholic
  faithful to Malá Strana throughout the years.
• In 1989, the
  Prague Embassy of West Germany, in the Palais Lobkowicz, was the site of a drama involving thousands of East German
  refugees. Their cars were left behind in the quarter.
• The famous Czech novelist Jan Neruda was born, lived in and wrote about Malá Strana; Nerudova Street is named after him.
• The
  Petřín lookout tower
  is located in Malá Strana.
• The Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu lived in an apartment near Kampa Island in the Malá Strana while a conservatory student, and a plaque now commemorates his stay.

References

Bibliography

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Castle and Lesser Town.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Malá Strana.

• Prague, the wayguide. By ARTFOTO printing house, Russian Language Edition.

50°05′17″N 14°24′14″E / 50.08806°N 14.40389°E / 50.08806; 14.40389