Talk:Bratislava/Archive 1

Some of my ideas

1. exchange the current top right picture with some nice panorama pic of bratislava (not the one with the freakin chimney in background tho) ---> what's so freaking about reality? --217.23.246.85 00:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

2. remove/redo the list of historic names, maybe use the coat of arms pic here

im to lame to do this myself, but someone might see my point and actually make this happen.

Top picture

Can someone possibly change the messy top picture in this article? There is a much nicer one located in slovak wiki version of bratislava. --84.47.122.16 22:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Romany name

Romany name of Bratislava: Pozhoma, Bratyislava

External links

Please, do not spam external links. Add links to only appropriate pages (e.g. concrete gallery page, if linked from photo galleries). --dusoft 15:41, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I have cleaned up this section, please refer to the previous versions of talk, if required. --dusoft 18:18, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I have sorted External links into subcats, if anyone feels this is not proper, let me know. I would now work on reviewing of sites linked and removing those that do not qualify as the quality websites. What do you think? --dusoft 18:10, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Names...

The names section, by saying that Pressburg and Pozsony "remained in common use until WWI", seems to imply that Bratislava was also a name at that time. But as far as I am aware, this was not particularly the case. The city was not a Slovak city, in any event, but even so, my understanding was that the name Bratislava was essentially invented (based on some very old stuff) in 1919. This should be made clearer. john k 17:16, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I was just looking up some info on that "Express Tram," and apparently the city was spelled Preßburg... That adds a new twist. Did this remain until the German spelling reforms, or did this change earlier? See 1914 on this site -newkai | talk | contribs 17:27, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

(1) Frankly, I do not understand where your problem lies...What the article says is basically correct and Bratislava was the official name since 1919. (2) Bratislava was only, predomninantly, or at least also a Slovak city since the 9th century at least...Depends on what you understand by Slovak city, of course...

Addition: OK, now that I have read it once more, I've got your problem. I hope it's OK now...Juro 19:44, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A few months later...Given that this seems to be an instance of a name change, rather than a mere matter of differing translations of the same name, I've put Pozsony and Pressburg at the beginning of the article as old names. In terms of whether it was a Slovak city before 1919 - well, our History of Bratislava says that in 1918 70% of the population was German or Magyar (I would assume this figure also includes Jews). That would mean, presumably, that another 30% was Slovak. So, I suppose, it was as much a Slovak city as it was anything. But it was just as much a Hungarian city, and a German city. Essentially, it was a city in Hungary (the second city of Hungary, in fact) with a mixed population of Magyars, Germans, and Slovaks...The basic fact is, though, that the article (and even more so History of Bratislava) needs to be cleaned up. john k 3 July 2005 06:41 (UTC)

Maybe it is a surprise to you that there are other years and centuries in human history than 1918 and the 19th century...Juro 3 July 2005 17:25 (UTC)

john and Juro -- thanks so much for initiating this change. Being Slovak and having both Magyars and Jews in my ancestry this was one my pet peeves in the Bratislava article. I think other cities with rich multiethnic history deal with this issue very similarly - see Gdańsk, Plzeň or České Budějovice. Jbetak 3 July 2005 17:45 (UTC)

Juro - before the 19th century there is no accurate demographic information. I would also assume that the Slavic population of the place increased in the 19th century due to industrialization. john k 3 July 2005 17:49 (UTC)

If Bratislava is comparable to Pilsen or Budweis in this regard then john could be right. There was a dramatic increase of the Czech population in both cities towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Jbetak 3 July 2005 17:57 (UTC)

(1) A general remark at Jbetak first: try to avoid discussions about topics you have no idea of. Bratislava is a name change, i.e. it has nothing to do with Danzig, Pilsen etc. (2) There are lists of inhabitants, archaelogical findings, reports of travellers and for example names of city parts and villages for older centuries enabling approximate percentages of nationalities. The situation in Czechia is totally different, because the situation in the Kingdom of Hungay was totally different compared to that in Austria. To put it shortly: Bratislava was a purely Slovak town until the 12th century. Some Magyars occured in the 12th century by founding a village. There were also foreign traders as visitors in the town, especially Italians and Austrians/Germans. The real "germanization" started in the 13th century when German "colonists" were invited to settle in the Kingdom of Hungary. Since then the percentage of Germans has been increasing gradually up to the high levels in the 18th century. In the 15th century, the patricians were all German, the subordinates all Slovaks, besides there were some Czechs, Moravians, Italians and a negligible number of Magyars. The majority of the Magyars came (like to most parts of Slovakia) only in the 16th century, fleeing from the Turks in present-day Hungary and given that Bratislava was the capital of Royal Hungary. Besides them, there were however many Slovak, Croat and Austrian immigrants. Throughout the early 19th century there were 65% Germans, 27% Slovaks in the town, and the rest were Hungarians and Jews. It was only after 1880 that the number of Hungarians suddenly increased by a process known as Magyarization (officially promoted by the government). In sum, to use Kenney's terminology, the town was originally a Slovak town for centuries, then a German-Slovak town for centuries (with a majority of Germans in the end), a Slovak-Magyar-German town around 1900 and a Slovak town since.

Please don't take it the wrong way, but politeness and good manners go a long way. I appreciate you elaborating on the topic and don't see any reason why I shouldn't participate in this discussion.

I believe you have misunderstood my comments about Danzig, Pilsen etc. What they all have in common is a history of multiethnic (or at least periods of different ethnic) development. Although the time-lines and other technicalities will obviously vary from case to case, they all face a similar challenge of how to come to terms with their past.

What caught my interest in your comments was the claim that Bratislava has been Slovak since 1900. Perhaps you meant March 27, 1919? And even if you did, I don't believe that the city had a Slovak population majority until sometime in the 1930s. Furthermore the 27% figure you gave on for the Slovak population minority in "the early 19th century" is likely incorrect, since I have found a source quoting 15% Slovaks in 1880.

Most disturbingly, what you and the Wikipedia article fail to mention is that Slovaks, Germans, Hungars, Jews, Czechs and Croats all lived in Bratislava in exemplary tolerance during the interwar period.

I have brought this up with you before and agree with john that the article would greatly benefit from a rewrite. Respectfully - Jbetak 4 July 2005 03:18 (UTC)

If you are unable to follow this, please do not waste the time of other users. (1) I repeat: your (or John's) assumption about immigration of Slovaks from somewhere in analogy to Czechia is wrong, the percentage of Slovaks decreased (this means it was 27% and then it was lower) over the 19th century. I do not understand why you are unable to understand such a simple statement. (2) I said "around" 1900 (of course I meant 1919) and formulated the whole sentence deliberately in a very loose way, because any statement of the type "German"/"Slovak" etc. city is basically also imprecise and actually ridiculous. (3) I do not see where we have been discussing issues of tolerance in this discussion. Juro 4 July 2005 11:05 (UTC)

I believe most people would agree that I have just done that i my comment above. This is indeed a simple matter. I still object to your tone and the coarse reply. If you prefer German or Slovak (I know that they are lot better than your English) why don't you use it?

To clarify: I think we are beyond territorial claims. What is less simple and takes more time to resolve, are the chauvinistic interests of several nations and ensuing historical cultural and other claims to places like e.g. Bratislava, Budweis, Danzig etc. I don't care if it was German and Czechs, Hungarians and Slovaks or Poles and Germans. It's always the same - too many opposing interests and interpretations of events. This is also directly related to the names people choose to use for these places.

I happen to believe you are prone to the Slovak POV. Let me explain: you declare Bratislava Slovak (loosely) as of 1900. I looked it up again and the city had a Czechoslovak population majority in 1930s. It didn't have a Slovak population majority until after the war. I presume you chose to call it Slovak since it was part of Czechoslovakia. If that's the case then the town was Hungarian since roughly the 10th century since it was part of the Hungarian territory. The Slovak population majority then shouldn't matter since it didn't matter to you in the 20th century. In the past 2000 years it was probably less Slovak then anything else - with the exception of the last 50 years of course.

I believe the first republic (CSR) recognized the special status of Bratislava. Hence my hint at the exceptional ethnic tolerance in the interwar Bratislava. The war changed all that of course. Another thing to keep in mind when interpreting the census data is the fact that many people would chose to Germanize, Magyarize or Slavicize depending on the current chauvinistic pressures de jour. I personally know Germans and Hungarians who would chose to say there we Slovak at one time or another.

Anyway, hope this clears up things a bit. And please don't bother if you enjoy arguments or are in pissy mood. I have better things to do with my time. Jbetak 8 July 2005 01:52 (UTC)

Juro - thanks for the demographic details, such as they are - that's very interesting. I would ask, though - how big was the place before the German settlement began in the 13th century? Was it a real town, or just a small settlement? The History of Bratislava article seems to suggest that it was only in the early 13th century that it became a major settlement. At any rate, it's obviously a complicated situation. May I suggest, though, that for discussions before 1919 in both this article and in History of Bratislava, we use the name Pressburg to refer to the city? This would make sense in that this is the name commonly used in English, and is not only the German name of a city politically dominated by, and for a while at least, largely inhabited by Germans; but also a close variant of the Slovak name at that time. john k 5 July 2005 02:00 (UTC)

First, today the town is known in English as Bratislava even in historic texts, but I am trying to use Pressburg for periods before 1919, although the name was not Pressburg even in German before the 15/16th century, but some other forms were used. Secondly, you should know that historically there are towns de-facto and de-iure. Bratislava was a de-facto town already in Celtic times (i.e, BC) and then again appr. from the 9th century onwards, de-iure from the 13th century onwards (first preserved town charter 1291, earlier charters unknown). Juro 5 July 2005 15:12 (UTC)

The Bulgarians call Bratislava Bratislava. They must be most of the 1616 Orthodox people in this wonderful city, so their opinion should be taken into account, too. --Vladko 8 July 2005 17:27 (UTC)

Juro - I have read a lot of historic texts, and I can't remember too many that refer to the Hungarian Diet meeting in Bratislava (there are a few, I will admit). The city is still normally called Pressburg in historical contexts. I have also seen books that call it Pozsony in the 19th century - I would suggest that this usage is at least as common as use of Bratislava before 1919. As far as de facto towns, I wasn't denying that there was a settlement there prior to the 13th century. I was suggesting that it was a very small settlement, and not of any particular significance. Nothing to do with whether it was a de jure town, although given the size of medieval de jure towns, I'd suggest that anything which was not a de jure town was probably pretty damned small. john k 8 July 2005 20:15 (UTC)

English name

This is just another one "non-existing" article http://62.1911encyclopedia.org/P/PR/PRESSBURG.htm..."Non-verifiable"...Juro 8 July 2005 17:12 (UTC)

That's an article from 1911, i.e. before 1919, you ... smart person. And I see nothing there about "Pressburgh" or "Pressborough". It simply calls the city by its then-official local (German-language) name. NoPuzzleStranger July 8, 2005 17:21 (UTC)

There's a Pressburg Street in New Orleans, LA. Perhaps it should be renamed to "Pressburg Strasse" to reflect the fact that it's a German word? Jbetak 8 July 2005 19:52 (UTC)

And there's a Moron Street in Australia... Perhaps you should take a trip there, and recharge your logical faculties so that you will be able to distinguish common and proper nouns again. NoPuzzleStranger July 8, 2005 20:18 (UTC)

Thank you for that comical relief! Is that why you are so popular amongst other editors? My suggestion is to keep this in line with other language versions -- they list the local geographic name and put all foreign name alternatives into parenthesis: XXX (German: ZZZ, Polish: YYYY, Latin: WWW). There is no need for adjectives, etymology or POV. Wikipedia has a list of current geographic name alternatives, I'd suggest to adhere to that. Continued use of historical geographic names is not tied or limited to these words becoming English "loan words" (e.g. Prague), that's an argument you were making. Jbetak 8 July 2005 20:42 (UTC)

The official name of Bratislava in 1911 was Pozsony. See: official maps of Austria-Hungary for examples. Nice try, though. john k 8 July 2005 20:16 (UTC)

Pressburg is just the English name of Bratislava before 1919, especially given the fact that the official language in the KoH was Hungarian and earlier Latin, not German, and there was a law since around 1895 that all names must be in Hungarian. Also, you can find the form "(hist.) Pressburg" explicitely for example in the Big Muret-Sanders German-English dictionary and if you read any old English texts. If it was not the English name, the entry would be "Pozsony" or even "Pressporok". It is irrelevant that the name is of German origin (you probably think that you have made a "huge" discovery, Nopuzzle...), it is still the English name (because not all, and even most, English geographical names are not of English origin, of course). Also, it is quite frequent that geographical names are taken from other languages than the official language, like in this case. But this all is so obvious that I really do not understand (again, dear, VeryPuzzlestranger) why I have to explain such elementary things here.Juro 19:45, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of how "official" the name was, Pressburg was a locally-used name, since there was at least a significant minority of German speakers there. So, English usage just chose one of the local names - and Pressburg was probably easiest to pronounce for English speakers. Again, this doesn't make it an "English name". Do you think "Helsinki" is an "English name" because that's what English speakers use? Of course not. This is all so obvious that I really do not understand why I have to explain such elementary things here. And on another matter, can anyone provide credible documentation for the supposed English variant "Pressborough"? If not, I will continue to remove it. NoPuzzleStranger 20:41, July 9, 2005 (UTC)

I think it might be also worth looking at this from an editorial standpoint. I'm not sure if all 40 name variants are even noteworthy here, they might be better off in the History of Bratislava article. Oh yeah, and I didn't find anything Pressburg-related in London either: http://maps.yahoo.net/ Just my $0.02 ;-) Jbetak 00:02, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, I see that I am talking to small children here and this is below any level now are you 5-years old or what. It is irrelevant from what the name arose. English name, more precisely we are talking about "in English", always means "name used in the English language". There cannot be a genuine name containing English syllabes for every town in the world. Pressburg was the only name used in the English language, hence it is the English name. Using your "argument" we could say that Cologne, Venice etc. are no English names, because they are French - but they obviously are (also) English names, without any "buts" and "howevers". And as for Pressborough, that is just an old form I have found in one of sevral books some 2 years ago (why should anyone invent something like that??), you will hardly find it on the internet just as most of the other older names (do you have a documentation for the other names??). But since we are (again) in the situation that Nopuzzlestranger decides what will be in the wikipedia, because HE does not understand something and HE does not know or HE cannot find something, and nobody stops him, I am taking no responsibility for this article from now on. I have (fortunately) other things to do. And since I know from past experience that in such discussions NoPuzzleStr always starts to lie and propose infantile arguments just to show that he is right I will just stop discussing here.Juro 16:05, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with "English syllables". An English name is one that is (a) used in English and (b) is not just any of the locally used names. Thus Cologne, Venice, and Prague are English names, since French is not a local language in any of those places. But Helsinki is not an English name, and Pressburg was not an English name, because those are/were just one of the local names. As to Pressborough, your book may have just based this on a single English source; I doubt it was ever widespread enough to be noteworthy: the full-text archive of the Times of London since 1785 doesn't find a single occurrence of it, using consistently "Pressburg", and in earlier times the spellings even of ordinary words weren't fixed anyway, and it is normal that anything with -burg might be written -burgh or -borough by someone sometimes. NoPuzzleStranger 21:44, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Partner City

I don't know why Soul South Korea was on there they are soo far appart and different Dudtz July 20th 2005 1:39 Pm EST

Hey, thanks for your follow-up! Even though Seoul might be far, that fact in and of itself wouldn't constitute a reason for removal of the paragraph in question. South Korean industry is investing heavily in Slovakia and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the two capital cities signed some sort of partnership and collaboration agreement as a gesture of good will. I found a fairly authoritative list of Bratislava's partner cities and it looks like you are off the hook - Seoul didn't make that list.

Another thing: could you please add a brief comment whenever editing an article? If not an official requirement, it's considered good manners, it really helps everyone. I've noticed that Scott put a temporary block on your account. I've reviewed your recent edits and must say that most of the stuff would raise and eyebrow or two. Jbetak 22:57, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Uh...what do you think I did?

I did put a brief comment

are you blind?

Dudtz 8/4/05 6:19 PM EST

Nice manners there kiddo. You did not include a comment, the partner city reference was included automatically because you used a section edit link. There was absolutely no way of telling that you zapped the entire paragraph you were supposedly editing. Jbetak

History

Hey, looking at the Bratislava city website (www.bratislava.sk) it looks like it was a corronation capital from 1536 to 1830, not 1563- so I changed it. Hope I took the right steps... haven't edited before.

The city is the most densely populated in Central Europe??? (REALLY?)

I am very sceptical about the claim in the first paragraph that Bratislava is the most densely populated city in Central Europe. If you include the most common use of Central Europe then it would be Germany, Austria, and the former communist countries between those countries and the former Soviet Union. I can think of several cities in the region that would seem to have higher populations densities and the claim has no reference of source.

(according to the Wiki) Bratislava - 428,000 in 368 km²

compared to

Munich - 1,4 million in 310 km²

or

Prague - 1,172,975 in Area 496 km²

or Gdansk, Poland 460 524 in 262 km²

unless somebody has some proof that Bratislava really is the densest city in Central Europe I would suggest leaving the sentence with that claim out of the article.

--Nikostar 14:47, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

According to the local government website of Bratislava the population density (Hustota obyvateľstva) is 1 231/km².

--Luke w 21:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I hope you will approve of my corrections to the English. I have plenty of experience in helping Slovaks write articles in elegant English. I am not quite sure what you meant in the second paragraph by "except Slovaks of course". It is still not quite right the way it still stands. Did you mean: "and, of course, Slovaks"? I have put "borough" for "city parts". "City parts " sounds strange in English. It's a direct translation of German "Stadtteil" and we already have the term "district". Hikitsurisan

The claim i've seen is that Petržalka is the densest residential district in Europe. MikeGogulski 22:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Events

First of all, I think that the fact, that Pressburg was a coronation capital of the Kingdom of Hungary should be mentioned in the introduction, since it is the most remarkable and interesting fact of Bratislava's history.

Secondly, I have looked up articles about other capital cities and what I miss here is the mention of some important events held in Bratislava. Political events, such as Bush-Putin summit should be mentioned, as well as sporting events - as far as I know, Ice Hockey World Championship in 1992 was held in Bratislava/with Prague/, European Figure Skating Championship /2001/, Davis Cup Finals as well as Water Slalom World Cups /in Cunovo - 1999,2003?/ etc. I currently don;t have much time, please do some research and add some info in the article.

Using Wikipedia content without attribution

If you are using Wikipedia's content without the required attribution, I will not tolerate your link in this article. Please, either remove the Wikipedia's content or include attribution notice as required by GNU FDL.

Requiring information about the importance of Bratislava both for Hungarians and Slovaks

Hey, can anyone explain me how could the town be one of the most important places in Hungary and "suddenly" (within XXX years) become the capital city of Slovakia? Can anyone make clear the double identity of Bratislava through history? When was Bratislava more hungarian and when more Slovak?(in the article about Bratislava's history there's not much information) I guess Hungarians and Slovaks are very different (first of all because of the language: a slavic one and let's say un unrelated one) so i guess there can't be a soft transition between cultures (something that could occur maybe between slovaks and czechs or spaniards and portugueses), and that's why it's so hard for me to understand this "history sharing". Thanks.

City logo

Bratislava city logo should be included in the article as it is extensively used in various promo and in the city itself. --Ondrejsv 10:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone please add the city's coat of arms. It's used much more frequently than the flag. Jancikotuc 08:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Chaotic page

Bratislava introduction on wikipedia looks very chaotic and not well organized..need really change..

Origin of name

Really is origin of current city name disputed ? This link confirms my school knowledge about it:

• [1]. --kelovy 21:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)