Above: Prague Castle, the ancient seat of Bohemian dukes and kings, Roman kings and emperors, and after 1918 the office of the Czechoslovak and Czech presidents On December 4, 1875, Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague, a city that, at the time, was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire—an irony for the man who would rise to become one of the foremost lyrical poets of 20th-century Germany.
