From Nowhere to “Partyslava”

Over the past two decades, Prague has cemented itself as a tourist hotspot in the popular imagination. But what of Bratislava, long considered a “poor cousin” to Prague? What images of Bratislava have foreign publics been presented with since the fall of communism in East-Central Europe and the establishment of the Slovak Republic? Building on previous research which has examined visitors’ historical perceptions of Bratislava primarily from a German-speaking perspective, this paper seeks to map the development of Bratislava’s image in media texts from English-speaking countries since 1989 by focusing on two central motifs: Bratislava as a post-communist space and Bratislava as a locus of touristic pleasures (“Partyslava”). The images presented herein will be evaluated and contrasted with local descriptions of Bratislava, thus offering a cross-cultural perspective which will contribute to the wider discussion of popular perceptions of post-communist urban spaces in East-Central Europe.