What to see in Wenceslas Square

Wenceslas Square (Václavské náměstí) does not look like a place where the course of history was changed. It is a long boulevard, 750 metres, lined with shops, hotels and cafes, with the National Museum at the far end. It could be Prague's Champs-Elysees or any central commercial avenue in a European city.

Yet in this very space, at three different moments in the twentieth century, the Czech people took to the streets and changed what seemed impossible to change.

Understanding those three stories is understanding why Wenceslas Square is far more than a shopping street.

History: from horse market to twentieth-century stage

The square was laid out by Charles IV in the fourteenth century as the horse market for the Nové Město (New Town) district. It was the same length then as it is today, 750 metres, but it was literally a market: the place where horses, livestock and grain were bought and sold.

Over the centuries, the market gradually transformed into a boulevard. In the nineteenth century, during the Czech National Revival, the square acquired its current symbolic meaning: the upper end, where the National Museum stands today, became the focal point for demonstrations of national identity. The equestrian statue of Saint Wenceslas, the patron saint of Bohemia, the tenth-century Duke Wenceslas I, was erected in front of the museum in 1912.

The square is named after that same Saint Wenceslas. Not the medieval King Wenceslas IV who had Jan of Nepomuk executed, but Duke Wenceslas I, the "Good King Wenceslas" of the English Christmas carol, who was murdered by his brother Boleslav in 935 and whom the Church canonised as martyr and patron of Bohemia.

Three defining moments of the twentieth century

The Prague Spring, August 1968

On the night of 20 to 21 August 1968, Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia. The invasion crushed Alexander Dubček's reformist experiment, the attempt to build "socialism with a human face".

Wenceslas Square was one of the great stages of civilian resistance. Prague residents surrounded the Soviet tanks, argued with the soldiers and draped Czech flags over the gun barrels, while the troops raked the facade of the National Museum with gunfire. It was not armed resistance: it was an act of presence, citizens facing the tanks with the statue of St Wenceslas behind them.

The resistance did not succeed militarily. The invasion was a success for the USSR. Czechoslovakia entered twenty years of "normalisation".

Jan Palach, January 1969

On 16 January 1969, university student Jan Palach doused himself in petrol and set himself alight at the top of Wenceslas Square, in front of the National Museum. He died three days later, on 19 January, with burns covering 85% of his body. He was 20 years old.

Palach did not immolate himself out of despair. He left letters explaining his act: it was a protest against the acceptance of the Soviet occupation and against the resignation spreading through Czech society. He demanded an end to censorship and a ban on Zprávy, the occupiers' newspaper, and warned that if his demands were not met, other students would follow his example.

The impact was immediate and massive. Palach's funeral drew hundreds of thousands of people to Prague. His name became a symbol of non-violent resistance.

Throughout the communist years, the regime systematically tried to erase Palach's memory, removing flowers from the spot where he immolated himself, persecuting anyone who commemorated him publicly. On 15 January 1989, twenty years after Palach's death, a memorial gathering in the square was brutally suppressed by police. It was one of the triggers for what would come ten months later.

Today, in front of the National Museum, a bronze cross sunk into the paving commemorates Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc, another student who set himself on fire a month later.

The Velvet Revolution, November 1989

On 17 November 1989, a student demonstration in Prague was brutally suppressed by police. The news spread the following day. On 19 November, Wenceslas Square began to fill.

Over the days that followed, hundreds of thousands of people filled the square every evening. They jingled their keys: the collective jangling was their way of telling the regime that it was time to go.

On 10 December, the first non-communist government since 1948 took office. On 29 December, Václav Havel was elected president. Six weeks passed from the suppressed demonstration to Havel's presidency. Without a single death.

What to see in Wenceslas Square today

The statue of Saint Wenceslas. The best-known meeting point in Prague. Josef Václav Myslbek's equestrian statue shows the duke in armour, surrounded by four patron saints of Bohemia: St Ludmila (his grandmother), St Procopius, St Adalbert and St Agnes of Bohemia.

The Jan Palach memorial. The bronze cross in the paving, in front of the National Museum. There are always flowers, and every January, on the anniversary, memorial events are held.

The National Museum (Národní muzeum). The neo-Renaissance building at the top end of the square. It reopened in 2018 after a complete renovation, and its collections cover natural history and the history of Bohemia.

The boulevard architecture. The buildings lining the square include some of the finest examples of early 20th-century Art Nouveau and Functionalism in Prague. The most photographed is the former Grand Hotel Evropa, an Art Nouveau gem from 1905. And in the Lucerna passage, a few steps away, hangs David Černý's St Wenceslas riding a dead horse, a parody of the statue on the square.

Wenceslas Square on the ODISEA tour

Our Nazism and Communism free tour starts on Wenceslas Square. Here the guide tells the three 20th-century stories (the 1968 invasion, Jan Palach and the Velvet Revolution) with the context of what happened before and after, and from here the route continues through the New Town to the Operation Anthropoid crypt.

Hearing the story of a 20-year-old student who chose that act as a form of resistance, with the National Museum in front of you and in a space you can see and walk on, has a very different effect from reading it in a book.

Book your place on the Nazism and Communism free tour

Frequently asked questions about Wenceslas Square

Why is it called Wenceslas Square? After Saint Wenceslas (Vaclav in Czech), the tenth-century Duke of Bohemia who was murdered by his brother and canonised as martyr and patron saint of the country. The patron's equestrian statue has presided over the square since 1912.

What happened in Wenceslas Square in 1968? On 21 August 1968, Soviet tanks invaded Prague to crush the Prague Spring, Dubcek's reformist experiment. Wenceslas Square was one of the great stages of civilian resistance.

Who was Jan Palach? A 20-year-old university student who immolated himself in Wenceslas Square on 16 January 1969 in protest against the Soviet occupation and the resignation of Czech society. He died on 19 January. He is the most powerful symbol of twentieth-century Czech non-violent resistance.

What was the Velvet Revolution? The peaceful transition from communism to democracy in Czechoslovakia in November-December 1989. It began with a suppressed student demonstration on 17 November and ended with the first non-communist government on 10 December. Without a single casualty. Wenceslas Square was the epicentre of the demonstrations.

Is Wenceslas Square actually a square or an avenue? Technically a boulevard, 750 metres long and 60 metres wide. In practical terms, it functions as both a square and the central landmark of Prague's New Town.

Wenceslas Square is the starting point of the second day of our Prague in 2 days itinerary. The full story of the occupation and the regime is in Nazism and communism in Prague. And another New Town icon, on the riverbank, is the Dancing House.