Overview of Bratislava: History

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After the fall of the Great Moravian Empire, Slovakia became part of the Kingdom of Hungary from the 10th century until the end of the First World War when the Treaty of Trianon granted Slovakia to Czechoslovakia, a country which Slovaks are widely proud of - for example, some Czechoslovakian representatives, such as Alexander Dubček and Gustáv Husák, were ethnically Slovak.

Between 1939 and 1944, Slovakia was a German-controlled state, then was conquered by the Soviets to recreate a pro-Soviet Czechoslovakia.

Bratislava was the capital (1536 - 1784), the coronation city (1563 - 1830) and the seat of the diet (1536 - 1848) of the Kingdom of Hungary for many years. Since 1960 it has been the capital of the federal state of Slovakia within Czechoslovakia and, since 1993, it has been the capital of independent Slovakia.

Although today, Bratislava's population are mostly Slovaks, from the 13th to the early 19th century, the majority ethnic group in the town were the Germans, who remained the largest ethnic group until the First World War (in 1910, 42% were German, 41% Hungarian and 15% Slovak out of a total population of 78,000) . Hungarians formed another important group in the city in the 19th century, but after the First World War, many Germans and Hungarians left for Austria and Hungary respectively and the remaining Germans were expelled at the end of World War II.