First settlements and founding of the city

The first written references to today’s city of Bratislava can be found in the so-called “ Salzburg annals” from the year 907. A place called Brezalauspurc was mentioned in a document. Other spellings (for example in Johannes Aventinus from the year 805) give the name Braslavespurch or pressal expression.
However, scientific studies have shown that the area around today’s Slovak capital was already settled in the Neolithic Age (around 5700 BC). These first settlers were therefore members of the culture of the linear ceramic band. They came in the 5th century in the area and settled there. They (or the Boier tribe ) founded around 115 BC where the present city center can be found. Around a fortified settlement.

Between the 1st and 4th centuries it was the Romans who ruled the area on the one hand, and the Germans on the other. This is how the famous Danube Limes ran straight through what is now the city. Around the year 500 the Slavs came to the area and founded the Samo Empire (which existed until 658) in 623, creating the first known Slavic state.

Bratislava in the High Middle Ages

If the urban development for the 10th century can only be shown imprecisely, it is assumed that today’s Bratislava must have been under Magyar or Hungarian rule from around the year 907. Pressburg County was founded at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries. In 990 the city passed to Bavaria and as a dowry from Gisela von Bayern on the occasion of her marriage to the Hungarian King Stephen I to the Hungarian state. Around the year 1001, Bratislava and all of Slovakia were conquered by Poland. From around 1030 the city finally became part of the Kingdom of Hungary.

From now on, a market settlement was to develop below the Pressburg, which was exposed to multiple attacks by foreign powers because of its extraordinarily good strategic location. The Mongols, for example, came into the surrounding area and devastated it in 1241. After that, many German colonists were settled in the city. These made up the majority of the population at the latest from modern times. The Hungarian King Andrew III. In 1291, Bratislava finally granted city rights and Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg declared Bratislava a free royal city in 1405.

Bratislava’s heyday

Following the Battle of Mohács (1526), ​​the Kingdom of Hungary ceded large parts of the territory to the Ottoman Empire. In this context, Bratislava became the capital of the remaining territory known as Royal Hungary in 1536. This was now ruled by the Habsburgs and was the seat of all important institutions and, from 1543 on, also the seat of the Archbishop of Gran. In Martin’s eight monarchs were crowned from the Habsburg dynasty in the years 1563-1830.

Not only under the rule of Empress Maria Theresa, but also in the 18th century in general, Bratislava was able to experience a cultural and economic heyday and become the largest and most important city in the entire Hungarian kingdom. New palaces were built, new monasteries and estates. The population grew threefold. This time did not end until under Joseph II, which was also due to the fact that the crown jewels were transferred to Vienna in 1783 and the administration moved to Ofen (now part of Budapest ). But Bratislava was able to become the urban center of the Slovak national movement in the following period.

Bratislava to this day

In 1805 the Peace of Pressburg was signed in Bratislava’s Primate’s Palace between Austria and France (after Napoléon Bonaparte’s victory at Austerlitz ). As a result of the renewed front line against France (1809 with England ), French bombardments took place on Bratislava, in the course of which, among other things, the Devín Castle was destroyed. By the end of the 19th century, Bratislava was the most industrialized city in the Hungarian kingdom (after Budapest).

In 1918, by order of the Allies, according to Abbreviationfinder, Bratislava was annexed to the newly founded Czechoslovakia, which then conquered the city with foreign help in January 1919. From now on it exercised the function of a de facto capital of the Slovak part of Czechoslovakia. Many Hungarians fled the city because of their rejection of the Czech state. From 1938 on, Bratislava was the seat of the government of the autonomous Slovakia and from 1939 on the capital of the first Slovak republic. The majority of the Jews living in Bratislava have now been expelled by the Slovak government and left to the National Socialists.

From the city, which was conquered by the Soviets in 1945, the resident German residents were expelled in the following years ( going back to the Beneš decrees ), so that the city was almost exclusively inhabited by Slovaks. After the Communist Party came to power in 1948, large prefabricated housing estates were built and urban modernizations were carried out, which destroyed not a few architecturally valuable buildings. From January 1, 1968, Bratislava was formally the capital of Slovakia (from 1969 the Slovak Socialist Republic).

At the end of 1989 Bratislava emerged as one of the centers of the so-called Velvet Revolution, which resulted in the expulsion of the communists from the country. Bratislava has been the capital of independent Slovakia since 1993.