Malostranské náměstí 4/27: Memorial to Ernest Denis

‘Ernest Denis, French-born Slavic scholar and historian, lived in Prague from 1872-1874’.

As the pre-eminent French expert in Czech history, Nîmes-born Ernest Denis was one of the key supporters of the First Republic (1918-1938). He was honoured in his adopted Bohemia by having a train station (Denisovo nádraží, since demolished) named after him, while here in Malá Strana a seated statue by Karel Dvořák was unveiled by prime minister Edvard Beneš in October 1928. It was destroyed in April 1940 on the orders of the Nazi deputy mayor Josef Pfitzner.

This memorial bust (Petr Roztočil, 2003) goes some way to restoring the memory of Denis’s important contributions to Czechoslovak affairs.