Vrakuňa (, ) is a borough of

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

. It is divided by into two parts by the

Little Danube The Little Danube (, , ) is a branch of the river Danube in Slovakia. It splits from the main river in Bratislava, and flows more or less parallel to the Danube until it flows into the river Váh in Kolárovo. It is long and its basin size is . ...

river.

Transport

* Buses ** Line ** Line ** Line ** Line ** Line ** Line * Trolleybuses ** Line ** Line * Night buses ** Line * Night trolleybuses ** Line

Names and etymology

The first written mention of Vrakuňa was in 1279 as a village named Werekne. Some other recorded medieval names are Verekene (1290), Frecendorf (1297), Verekuna (1323), Oluerekenye (1356), Berekenye in theutonico Fratedorf (1393) or Vraknye (1459). The name is probably derived from a

Proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium BC through the 6th ...

appelative ''*vrakunъ'', potentially reflecting Pre-Christian (

pagan Paganism (, later 'civilian') is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism. In the time of the ...

) rituals. The stem ''vra-'' means "to speak without making any sense", ''vrakúň'' – a wizzard, preserved in

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

as вракун/vrakun – a liar, a gossip). Lajos Kiss (1988) tried to drive the name from

''*vir-'' (a whirl).

Šimon Ondruš Šimon Ondruš (* 27 October 1924, Klčov – † 8 January 2011, Bratislava) was a Slovak linguist, Slavist and indo-Europeanist, member of several international linguistic societies. Life He studied Slovak language and philosophy at the Come ...

(1990) from

''*vorkъ'' (in

East Slavic languages The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of the Slavic languages, distinct from the West Slavic languages, West and South Slavic languages. East Slavic languages are currently spoken natively throughout Eastern Europe, ...

: ''vorok'' - a fence, a barrier) like Vorkonъ, Vorkunovka and other similar names, but documented only for the East Slavs.

History

Vrakuňa became an official borough of Bratislava on January 1, 1972.

References

Boroughs of Bratislava {{Bratislava-geo-stub