Averil Huck’s feminist walking tours uncover Prague’s hidden women’s history
Averil Huck runs Prague Feminist Tours, a project that introduces visitors to the stories of women who helped shape Czech history but whose names are often missing from monuments and street signs. Originally from France and now based in the Czech capital, she leads walking tours that bring those overlooked stories back into the public space.
Averil took me along on a short version of one of her tours, called the Czech Women’s History Tour in Prague’s Old and New Town. We met at Karlovo náměstí, where the walk begins.
We are starting our mini tour here at the statue of Eliška Krásnohorská. Why did you decide to make this the starting point of one of your tours, specifically the Czech women’s history tour? Why is this place important in Czech women’s history?
"On this specific square, Charles Square, we have two statues of women, so I thought it was a brilliant part of the city to start with because it allows me to share the stories of both of them. There is first the statue of Eliška Krásnohorská, and a few meters away you have the statue of Karolina Světlá, so it is a good place to introduce these two women and talk about their stories."
First of all, Eliška Krásnohorská — for those who may never have heard of her — who was she? Why is she such an important figure in Czech history?
"She was a writer and a poet, and she also wrote the libretto for an opera by Bedřich Smetana. The reason I like to talk about her is that she made significant contributions to women’s access to education. She created the first Czech-speaking high school for girls called Minerva and was also involved in many women’s organizations, as well as in the women’s magazine Ženské listy, or Women’s Papers in English.
"It was initially a light-read type of magazine for women, but under her leadership it completely changed and became a comprehensive source of literary and feminist analysis of society. She monitored women’s movements abroad, for example in the United States, Austria and the rest of Europe, and compared them with what was happening here, seeing what worked and what did not.
"She advocated allowing women in all spheres of activity, arguing that it would serve the nation. She was therefore involved both in the women’s rights movement in the Czech context and in the movement for the independence of Czechoslovakia, when the country was still under the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
"After independence in 1918, she became the first woman to be appointed a full member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and Arts by President Masaryk, recognizing her lifelong achievements and her self-taught education, since women still did not have access to higher education."
Could you share an interesting fact about the statue itself?
"An interesting fact about the statue is that it was created by the first Czech professional woman sculptor, Karla Vobišová-Žáková. She studied partly in France, in Paris, under Auguste Rodin, later returned to Czechoslovakia and was commissioned for many projects, including this statue. She even received an award from the Academy of Sciences for this statue on Charles Square."
Our next stop will be another statue, as you mentioned — that of Karolina Světlá, another writer and, I believe, a lifelong friend of Eliška Krásnohorská. But before we get there, I am curious about your own story. What brought you to Prague in the first place?
"I am French, to give a bit of background, and I moved to the Czech Republic, and to Prague specifically, six years ago in 2019. I was still a student in France studying gender studies for my master’s degree, so these topics had been my passion for a long time. I was looking for an internship and decided to go abroad because I did not want to stay in France. After my experience in Finland as an Erasmus student, I really wanted to live abroad again.
"It eventually became a decision between a work opportunity and love, because my partner is Czech, which helped with choosing where to do the internship. I found an internship at the Czech Academy of Sciences, specifically at NKC Gender a věda, the Center for Gender and Science.
"What started as a four-month internship eventually turned into three years of employment at the Academy, which is how I ended up in Prague working here for several years. After my contract ended, I started my own business."
What inspired you to start your own business, specifically Prague Feminist Tours? Was there a particular moment when you decided this was what you wanted to do?
"I wanted to participate in something like this when I moved to Prague, but it didn’t exist in English — so I decided to create it myself."
"It was really a mix of things. I experienced a feminist walk back in France and it was very interesting, a different way to rediscover your own city. I am not usually someone who goes on guided tours, but this was a theme that really resonated with me. When I moved to Prague I tried to find something similar because I wanted to participate and see if it existed, but it did not, at least not in English.
"When I was looking for my next chapter after finishing my work at the Academy of Sciences, I thought it might be something I could create myself. I can speak some Czech, but not enough to have full employment in the field in Czech, so I saw a small gap and created these tours — feminist walks that I offer in English and in French."
We are now standing at the monument to Karolina Světlá, another writer and another woman who played a crucial role in Czech literary history. What can you tell us about her?
"A lot of people do not know that her statue is here. They usually know the statue of Eliška Krásnohorská because it is very big and white and easier to see, while Karolina Světlá’s statue is a bit more hidden, which can be confusing for some people. In fact there are two statues of women on this square.
"Karolina’s real name was Johanna Nepomucena Rottová. She came from a wealthy Protestant family and attended a German-speaking school, where she developed a love of literature. Her father, although quite liberal, did not really support this interest and removed her from school. But that did not stop her from becoming one of the most important women writers of her time.
"She was part of the Májovci literary movement, which also included Jan Neruda, and she knew many people in Prague’s intellectual circles such as Božena Němcová.
"In terms of women’s rights, she co-founded two organizations: the American Ladies Club, focusing mainly on women’s education, and the Czech Women’s Production Society, which focused on women’s financial independence and employment."
When researching Czech women’s history for your tours, was there something that really surprised you or perhaps changed the way you see Czech history or the city?
"Many women became involved in the fight for Czechoslovak independence because equality was seen as part of that struggle."
"Coming from a French background, it was very interesting to learn how the feminist movement worked here. The suffragette movement and the women’s emancipation movement developed in a very specific political context that was quite different from France. In the Czech lands, men and women often worked together with the goal of creating an independent Czechoslovak state, and equality was considered part of that struggle.
"That is why many women became involved in the fight for independence. I found this very interesting, especially because it still resonates today in discussions about feminism and women’s rights. It is also something we did not learn at school in France — I had never heard of many of these people before moving here. It shows the importance of looking at different perspectives and different feminisms around the world."
What about the way Czech women are represented — or not represented — in the streets of this city?
"Only about five percent of streets are named after women. That says something about a society’s values — who we decide to remember and who we forget."
"I think it is not so bad here — you can see quite a lot of statues, memorial plaques and similar reminders. But we could still do better. For example, only about five percent of streets are named after women, while the rest are named after men. That says something about a society’s values — who we decide to remember and who we forget.
"For me, Prague Feminist Tours is also a way to bring these narratives back into the public space."
We are now standing outside the building of the Czech Women’s Production Society. What was this place and what purpose did it serve?
"It is actually quite a beautiful building, so I would invite people to go and have a look. It features three busts of the association’s co-founders: Karolina Světlá, Eliška Krásnohorská and a third woman called Emilie Bártová, a Czech feminist and suffragette involved in many of the women’s organizations I mentioned earlier.
"This association was founded in 1871 and aimed to combat female poverty by teaching financial literacy, providing vocational training for young women and helping them find employment. This became especially important after the Prussian War in the 1860s, when many men died in battle and many women became widows or orphans who had to support themselves and their families.
"Places like this helped women obtain the knowledge and skills they needed to become independent. The first school and office in Prague was not enough, so similar institutions were later opened throughout the country.
"The building also served as the headquarters of the magazine I mentioned earlier. And although it stands very close to the Dancing House, a well-known tourist spot in Prague, not many visitors know about this place."
You now offer several different tours — including one that caught my eye, the “Badass Women of Olšany Cemetery.” How do you actually design the routes for your tours?
"It involves several things. First I walk around the city and try to stay curious. Whenever I see a memorial plaque, a street name or the name of a building, I wonder who it refers to.
"I also use a very useful tool called Mapy.cz, which is very well designed and includes information about memorial plaques, street names and statues. I can explore the map and see what might be interesting to include in a tour.
"So it is really a mix of reading about women’s history and seeing whether any of these women have been memorialized in Prague’s public space. Sometimes it also works the other way around — noticing something in the city, researching it and then deciding whether it could be included in a tour."
Who usually joins your tours? Are they mostly tourists or people who live here in Prague?
"It is actually a mix, but mostly locals — either Czech people or foreigners who live in Prague or elsewhere in the country. My public tours, where anyone can sign up, usually attract those local audiences along with a few tourists who are looking for feminist events in Prague.
"For private tours the audiences are more varied. Sometimes I have school groups from international or Czech schools, NGOs organizing tours for their communities, or companies booking tours for their employees. So I get many different kinds of audiences joining the tours, which is really nice."
Our final stop is the building of the former Minerva School. Why is this place significant?
"We are now standing at the building where Eliška Krásnohorská opened the first Czech-speaking high school for girls on September 15, 1890. The school was called Minerva, named after the Roman goddess of wisdom and war, which I think is a very fitting name for a girls’ school.
"It was created at the intersection of two movements — the struggle for women’s rights and the struggle for Czech independence. The goal was to provide education in Czech rather than German and to give girls the same curriculum as boys, preparing them for the Maturita exams and for higher education.
"But it was not easy to establish. In 1881 Krásnohorská presented a petition signed by more than 4,000 people asking for a public Czech-speaking high school for girls, but the Ministry of Education ignored the request completely. She therefore founded the Minerva Society and opened a private school instead.
"At first it required tuition fees, which meant some girls could not attend, but later scholarships made it more accessible. Graduates were prepared for university, although women initially could not enrol. They could study abroad or attend lectures at Charles University without taking exams.
"Thanks to Krásnohorská’s advocacy, a decree in 1897 finally allowed women to study at universities, initially only in medicine and later in other fields. Full equal access to education came in 1920 with the first Czechoslovak constitution, which declared women politically, socially and culturally equal to men."
Are you already working on new tours or projects for the future?
"Yes, I always have many ideas. I am working on future tours, possible collaborations and perhaps other types of events. At the moment I am still working alone, so developing the project takes time, but I am continuing to work on it and see how it can evolve."
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