Olšany villa

Olšany villa, a former manor number 45, is located in Chelčického Street in Prague, in Parukářka Park. It is a former family estate of Stanislav Neumann, Prague architect and representative of the Old Czech Party in Parliament, from a German-Polish aristocratic family, father of Stanislav Kostka Neumann. In Neumann’s youth, all that had been left from the large estate was the villa, which became a centre of an anarchistic bohemian group. Apart from the villa’s owners, many poets and artists gathered here, such as František Gellner, Fráňa Šrámek, Karel Toman, Helena Malířová, Marie Majerová, Jiří Mahen, Viktor Dyk, etc. The villa is connected primarily with the early turbulent anarchistic period in the Czech lands. Various stories of “obscene orgies” that allegedly took place here circulated in Prague at the turn of the century. Here Neumann wrote his collection I Am an Apostle of the New Life (Jsem apoštolem nového žití, 1896) and Satan’s Glory Among Us (Satanova sláva mezi námi, 1897) and the anarchist magazine Nový kult (New Cult) was published here. The villa’s reputation changed somewhat in 1904, when S.K. Neumann left it and went to Vienna with his new partner. His first wife Kamila Neumannová stayed in the house and in 1905 began publishing an edition of translated literature Books by Good Authors (Knihy dobrých autorů – KDA). Even after Stanislav Kostka Neumann’s departure the house remained a meeting place for bohemians, writers and artists. Today, the author’s distant relatives live there.