The Royal Free Crown City Bratislava in 1787

by AdamStanislav - uploaded on June 4, 2016, 1:43 am

For many centuries, the Habsburg rulers of Central Europe had to be crowned twice. Once in Vienna, where they were crowned Emperors of Austria. And once in Bratislava, where they were crowned Kings of Hungary. Note that Vienna and Bratislava are mere 55 km (34 miles) from each other, both centrally located within the dual monarchy.



Additionally, during the Turkish Wars, when the Turks besieged Vienna, the monarchs lived in the Castle of Bratislava. Bratislava has the Danube River to the South and the Carpathian Mountains to the North, which made it pretty hard to besiege. You can see the Danube in the front of the image and the Carpathians in the background.



The monarchy fell after World War I and split into a number of different smaller countries.



The handwritten German text at the bottom says, “Die Königliche freye Krönungstadt Preßburg” which word for word means “The Royal free Crowncity Bratislava.” This graphic was created from the public domain image at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bratislava_history_01.jpg. See also https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bratislava_1787.jpg for a different scan of the same historical drawing, which identifies it as being from 1787.



And just in case you want more, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bratislava is a good place to start. ;)