Bratislava
Bratislava, city, capital of Slovakia. It lies in the extreme southwestern part of the country, along the Danube where that river has cut a gorge in the Little Carpathian Mountains near the meeting point of the frontiers of Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary. Vienna is 35 miles (56 km) west.
History
Archaeological evidence suggests prehistoric habitation of the site, which was later fortified and settled by the Celts and Romans and finally in the 8th century was inhabited by the Slavs. The location of today’s Bratislava was within Great Moravia, the earliest West Slavic state. Repeated Hungarian attacks led to the downfall of Great Moravia, and the area became part of Hungary. Being located on the kingdom’s frontier, it became an economic and administrative center. The community developed as a trade hub and was granted the rights of a free royal town in 1291 by Andrew III, king of Hungary. The first university in what was then Hungary, the Istropolitana Academy, was founded there in 1465. Ottoman forces inflicted a massive defeat on Hungary at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, and the effect of this was such that the Hungarian Diet decided to transfer the capital away from Buda (then occupied by the Ottomans). Bratislava (under its Hungarian name Pozsony) served as the Hungarian capital from 1536 until 1783, when most of the middle Danube basin was in the hands of the Turks, and the Hungarian parliament continued to meet there until 1848. The Habsburg rulers were crowned kings of Hungary in the city’s Gothic Cathedral of St. Martin.
Over the centuries Bratislava has gone through multiple complex changes in its population. From the Middle Ages until the 19th century, Germans were a dominant ethnic group, but the city also contained large communities of Hungarians and Slovaks. During this long period the proportions of the various ethnicities tended to shift based on such factors as migration, self-identification, and assimilative pressures. With the foundation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, a new inclusive Czechoslovak identity emerged, which further complicated the question of ethnic identification. The very name Bratislava, favored by Slovak patriots due to its medieval Slavic origins, was introduced during this period, replacing the previous Slovak name of Prešporok.
World War II and its associated effects caused massive demographic disruptions. Most of the city’s Jews were deported to concentration camps; after the war’s end most of Bratislava’s Germans were expelled. From the 1950s onward the population has been approximately 90 percent Slovak.
The contemporary city
The city is dominated by its enormous castle, which stands on a plateau 300 feet (100 meters) above the Danube. The castle was the residence of the Austrian royal family when visiting Hungary until it was destroyed by fire in 1811; it has since been largely restored. As the capital of Hungary for more than 200 years, Bratislava played an important role in the history of the Habsburg realm. In 1741 Empress Maria Theresa of Austria fled to Bratislava when Vienna was threatened by French and Bavarian troops. The treaty known as the Peace of Pressburg (1805) was signed by Napoleon and the Austrian emperor Francis II, after the Battle of Austerlitz, in the city’s Baroque Archbishop’s Palace. Following World War I, Bratislava was made the capital of Slovakia in the first Czechoslovakian Republic, and it remained the capital when Slovakia emerged as an independent nation in 1993.
- German:
- Pressburg
- Hungarian:
- Pozsony
The modern city of Bratislava is a cultural center and the seat of Comenius University (1919; successor to the medieval Istropolitana Academy), the Slovak Academy of Sciences (1953), several specialized schools and technical institutes, the Slovak National Theatre, and the Slovak National Gallery and Museum. An important road and rail junction and river port, Bratislava has diversified industries producing textiles, chemicals, and metal and electrical goods. It is the most prosperous region of Slovakia, accounting for about 26 percent of Slovak GDP. Pop. (2021) 475,503.