City Archive

City Archive provides the following:

• sifts through, protects, and enables access to archived documents arising from activities of various bodies of the city, its city districts, entities that were set up and founded by them, and important persons operating in Bratislava.
• carrying out pre-archival care – registration of filling departments originators, approval of orders and plans of filling departments originators, deleting filling department originator entries that are past their depositing period
• access to archived documents, archiving equipment and to registry of archived documents that were received by issuing excerpts, copies, certificates, making copies, studying and public exhibiting of archived documents (pursuant to the Act on Archives and Filling Departments No. 395/2002 Col. – but not pursuant to the Act No. 211/2000 Col. On Freedom of Information)
• registering of archival heritage in Afondy information system
• administration and charging administrative fees pursuant to a separate legislation
• digitalisation of archived documents, making conservation and research copies as well as making photographs and copies upon request by applicants
• tasks related to promoting Bratislava history in collaboration with media, scientific, experts, social and cultural institutions
• tasks relating to the co-operation with other archives at home and abroad as well as scientific and cultural institutions operating in the city
• maintenance of the book collections and collaborating with specialised units in processing of historical book collections

City Archive is an organisational part the City Hall as a Section of the Department of Culture, which is directly subordinated to the City Hall director. The governing and methodological body is the Section for Archives and Filling Departments of the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic.

City Archive has more than 350 archival funds and collections in its care.

The most extensive and for scientific research the most valuable is City Fund. Its oldest document is the scroll written in 1245 by Belo IV.

Medieval scrolls and written materials make a collection of 6,584 items in total. The scroll of Ondrej III from the 2 December 1291 stands out as it deals with the granting of city privileges to the city. Modern documentary and leaf material kept in City Archive from 1551 until the 20th century contains more than 20 000 pieces.

The most valuable and detailed source of urban life knowledge from the Middle Ages until today provide town books as well as other scroll material. The Bratislava Guilds Funds and Guilds of Extramural Bratislava also deserve your attention. The oldest known guild, the Brotherhood of the Body of God, was founded in 1349.

Funds mapping cultural and social life in the city include associations, with the Church Music Society standing out. Among other documents, it contains mainly the extensive collection of musical works by important authors such as Beethoven, F. Liszt, J. L. Bella.

Of no less interest are the funds of more than 60 Bratislava personalities and families, including traders, diplomats, philanthropists, artists, as well as personal funds of Slovak national personalities such as M.M. Hodža or J.M. Hurban.

Nobilitaria – collection of crest and yeoman documents, heraldic and genealogical collection (1434 - 1901) – are also significant. Very valuable material is contained in the Collection of Maps and Plans (1552 - 1998). Currently it contains more than 1800 inventory items.

Other interesting documents include a collection of posters and small prints, as well as other documentary material, such as the chronicles or the extensive collection of periodical press leading by the Pressburger Zeitung newspaper, which began to be published in Bratislava in 1764. This newspaper belongs to the first series of digitized documents in our archive and is currently available online.

From the funds of the 20th century, the most important place is occupied by the funds of the Municipal Notarial Office, Investing, Department of the Chief Architect and especially the National Committee of the city, which is the largest modern age fund of City Archive. Just the filing materials from years 1945 - 1968 are stored in 3509 archive boxes. These archival funds are currently also most used by researchers, mainly in connection with privatization, judicial rehabilitation, restitution, construction or property proceedings.

A large group of funds are nurseries, primary and secondary schools and other schools and educational facilities, as well as the Fund of Municipal Administration for Schools and Cultural Facilities. These are mainly used for purposes of providing data for the completion of education and employment, or for the needs of pension provision.

City Archive is obliged to take over new registrations from originators and their legal successors after the discharge proceedings, which are then transformed into new funds. The funds of the National Committee of Bratislava, the District National Committees, schools and other institutions are on the waiting list. Once processed, they will be made available to the public in the same way as our historical archive funds.

City Archive has digitised existing archival tools, which were only available to researchers in physical form.

The main archive funds such as City Hall, the National Committee, the Department of the Chief Architect, selected associations, guilds, personal funds and a collection of maps and plans are transferred to the digital form and already supported by the basic archival tools in digital form.

Access to archival documents for official or scientific purposes is only possible upon request. Access is granted to anyone pursuant to the Act No. 395/2002 Coll. as amended. You can apply in several ways:

• in person at City Hall’s filing department, Primaciálne námestie,
• in person at City Archive, Marková 1,
• by post to the postal address of City Archive, Magistrát hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy, Primaciálne nám. 1, 814 99 Bratislava,
• by e-mail to [email protected].

In your application, please provide your full name, contact details (if requested additional details such as date of birth, address, etc.). Please, also state which documents you require and what is the purpose of the enquiry.

Application examples

• Jozef Novák, DOB 01.01.1950, requests a confirmation of the period of study at the XY Primary School in order to apply for social benefit (pension);
• Mária Nováková from the XY institution requests for documents from the personal fund of J. N. Batka for personal research, in order to prepare a scientific publication on the history of music science in Slovakia (science and research);
• Ján Kováč, property owner/ tenant’s representative/ from housing cooperative XY, requests project documentation for the property number XY for the purposes of reconstruction/administrative proceedings/official purposes (administrative agenda); etc.

• The documents can be accessed in person in our Study Room at the Archive at Marková 1 during a pre-arranged appointment (date and time within the study hours)
• After the payment of administrative charge (according to current valid price list) we can provide a copy, excerpt, extract or confirmation from the archived document,
• Archived documents can also be accessed in a form of exhibition which can be organised by the Archive or the selected thematic documents can be lent to another institution for an exhibition in publicly accessible place

The Archive and its experts cooperate with scientific, cultural and educational institutions located within or out of the city.

The Archive develops close cooperation mainly with City Museum, not only in the preparation of exhibitions and conferences, but also by regularly contributing to the Bratislava Yearbook of Science.

Other partners of City Archive are the Society of Slovak Archivists, the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the Comenius University in Bratislava and others.

The employees of the archive are also engaged in their own publishing activities. They work on the topics related to the history of the administration, the city elites or, on the other hand, groups of people standing on the margins of society as well as the history of archiving and other topics related to the history of the city or the history of their own field of interest.

Our archivists are members of several expert committees and boards.

The Archive also organizes an annual open day with exhibitions and lectures. Our archivists similarly organise separate lectures for primary and secondary schools.

In the past, City Archive, as one of the oldest municipal retention institutions, has saved through its procurement activities a number of archival documents, rare manuscripts and prints, as well as photographs that are not only of the regional but also national or even European significance.

This is one of the reasons why the Bratislava City Archive is turning to all residents, as well as the wider public with a request to obtain documents to the archive funds. The aim is to preserve these documents as sources of history of Bratislava and life of its residents for the future, thus making them available in later research.

We are interested in the following original documents:

• Complete personal funds of individuals (with all preserved documentation, correspondence, education documents, accolades, photographs, etc.)
• Handwritten memoirs, journals, diaries or other records (including those on private matters).
• Chronicles or other manuscript works of a similar nature kept by schools, ROH clubs (Revolučné Odborové Hnutie - Revolutionary Union Movement), pioneer clubs, voluntary organizations of the National Front (Association of Czechoslovak – Russian Friendships, etc.), breeders' associations, horticultural associations, enterprises and other institutions.
• Research reports, concepts, studies and qualification works in the areas of history, architecture, art history, sociology with relation to Bratislava (or its surroundings).
• Diplomas (school, university, leisure activities and interest, etc.)
• Posters, leaflets and information brochures from various events in the city, also from election to the local and regional government post year 1990.
• Photos (negatives, slides) - especially images of streets, buildings, images of the demolition of old buildings, construction of housing estates, ordinary life situations (various celebrations of both public and private character). In order to know the context and locations, it is important to be able to identify situations in photos, so we are also interested in talking to you.
• Publications about Bratislava: historical, ethnological, architectural and sociology, photographic works, tourist guides, small prints (also from the activities of various enterprises and institutions), school reports, printed maps and plans.
• Books on Slovak and general history, ethnology, auxiliary sciences of history, architecture, sociology, encyclopedia and manuals (also works published abroad, especially works published after 1990).