Prague street named after Croatian politician Stjepan Radic

REUTERS/David W Cerny

A street in Prague has been named after Croatian politician Stjepan Radic (1871-1928), the Zagreb-based Croatian-Czech Society said on Saturday, describing Radic as a Croatian patriot, politician and promoter of Croatian-Czech relations at the start of the 20th century.

The decision to name the street after the founder of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) was made by the Prague City Council on May 15, based on a proposal put forward by the Croatian-Czech Society and a Czech minority representative in Zagreb County, Franjo Vondracek.

This year marks the 90th anniversary of Radic’s death. Radic, an HSS member of parliament in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was fatally wounded by Serbian Radical Party MP Punisa Racic in Belgrade on 20 June 1928.

Radic studied and worked in Prague for some time and was married to a Czech woman, Maria Dvorakova.

The Croatian-Czech Society has proposed putting up four more memorials to Croatian great men in whose lives Prague played an important tole – scientists Nikola Tesla, Vladimir Prelog and Andrija Mohorovicic and Josip Juraj Strossmayer, a bishop, theologian and founder of central Croatian cultural and scientific institutions. This year, a plaque commemorating writer August Senoa will be put up in Prague as well.

Marijan Lipovac of the Croatian-Czech Society said that Radic’s street would be one in a number of ‘Croatian’ streets in Prague, where there is already Josip Juraj Strossmayer Square, Nikola Tesla Street, streets named after Croatia, Zagreb and Dubrovnik, as well as the Street of Yugoslav Partisans, formerly named Tito Street.