Sigmund Freud was born in Freiberg, in Moravia, on 6th of May 1856. People from here were Czechs, but Jewish people were talking German and were mostly assimilated to the Austro-Hungarian ruling class. His father, Jacob Freud, was a textile dealer. He married for the first time when he was seventeen and had two children: Emmanuel and Philipp. After he became a widower, he remarried in 1851 or 1852 with a certain Rebecca, about whom we don't know if she died young or she was repudiated, and for the third time with a young woman of twenty, Amalia Nathansohn (1835 1930), whose first child will be Sigmund. He will be succeeded by Julius, who died at eighteen months, Anna, Rosa, Mitzi, Dolfi, Paula and Alexander.

Sigmund Freud inherited from his father the sense of humor, the skepticism before life incertitude, the habit of exemplifying by a Jewish anecdote when he wanted to bring out some moral feature, his liberalism and free thought. From his mother he would have taken "the sentimentalism", an ambiguous word in German, which would mean that Freud was capable of intense emotional feelings.

Freud enjoyed the unrestrained love of his mother, Amalia, who called him "my golden Sigi". This unconditional love will make Freud notice: "When you were incontestably the favorite child of your mother, you keep during your lifetime this victor feeling, you keep feeling sure of success, which in reality seldom doesn't fulfill".

From the age of eight also comes another remembrance less pleasant that will play an important role in the later victory dream, which the dreamer himself will interpret. The remembrance under discussion put him in a position of humiliating inferiority before his parents. What's this about: he would have been scolded by his father because he intentionally had urinated in his parents' bedroom and apostrophized by these words: "There will come nothing of this boy!". When he narrates this happening, Freud states precisely that this phrase should have deeply afflicted him "in my dreams the scene often repeated, always accompanied by an enumeration of my works and successes, as if I intended to say: <<You see, nevertheless I became somebody! >>."

Another grievous remembrance: his father took him for a walk and narrated an unpleasant event with a passerby who had apostrophized him: "You, Jew - get down from the sidewalk!" Freud was extremely disappointed when he found out his father hadn't reacted upon the insult of that stranger. "To this scene, which annoyed me - he writes - I opposed another one, more consonant with my feelings, the scene when Hamilcar Barcas asks his son to swear, before the sanctuary, that he'll take his vengeance on the Romans." Hannibal becomes a hero to Freud's view and he reappears under the form of the dreams about Rome in his associations from "The Interpretation of Dreams"(1900), from which we also took out this details. Later on, he presented this happening in the same book, as a resentment motive, which was constantly present. He extracts from this the sources of the feelings that made him identify himself with Hannibal: "Hannibal and Rome - Freud writes at this opportunity - symbolized the opposition between the Jewish tenacity and the organizing spirit of the Catholic Church". Moreover: "the wish to go to Rome became at the delirious level the veil and symbol of many other ardent wishes, which need for their achievement persevering and steadfast hard work... and their fulfillment seems to be as less favored by destiny as was Hannibal's lifetime wish to enter Rome".

When he was four years old, as his father met with a business failure, Freud and his family settled down in Vienna, a noisy and cosmopolitan metropolis, which will sensitively stand in contrast with the lawns and mountains from Moravia, to which Freud will forever feel attached. "Under deep sediments, it continue to live inside myself the happy child from Freiberg who has received from this air and this earth his first unforgettable impressions", Freud remarked and he will even state precisely: "I 've never felt within my depth in this city [Vienna]. I believe nowadays that I've always regretted the marvelous forests of my childhood, and one of my remembrances evokes me the fact that I used to run as if I wanted to get off from my father, when I was scarcely able to walk".

Timeline
1856 - 6 May: Sigismund Freud is born (to change his name to Sigmund at 22). According to custom, he is also given a Jewish name: Schlomo. His birthplace is Freiberg (nowadays Pribor) in Moravia (the Czech Republic). His father Jacob is 41 and has two children from a previous marriage: Emmanuel and Philippe. Sigismund's mother is 21 and this is her first born.

1859 - The economic crisis ruins Jacob's business. The family settles in Vienna, in Leopoldstadt, the Jewish neighborhood (February 1860).

1865 - Sigmund is admitted to the Gymnasium (secondary school) a year ahead his time.

1870 - He receives Ludwig Borne complete works; reading these books will influence him greatly.

1872 - He returns to Freiberg to spend his holidays.

1873 - He receives a summa cum laudae award on graduation from secondary school. He is congratulated on his style in German. He is already able to read in several languages. Under his colleague's Heinrich Braun influence, he plans to study law but finally decides in favor of medical school, after having attended a lecture on Goethe's essay On Nature. Start his studies at Vienna University.

1874 - While at university, he discovers anti-Jewish prejudices and declares his place is "with the opposition". Attends Brentano's lectures.

1875 - Travels to Manchester, Britain, to see Philippe and his niece Pauline.

1876 - His first personal research in Trieste, on sexual glands of anguilas. Joins Brucke's laboratory.

1877 - Publishes the result of his anatomical research on the central nervous system of a specific larva.

1878 - His research in Brucke's laboratory bring him to a step's distance from the discovery of the neuron (called as such by Waldeyer in 1891). Becomes a friend of Breuer, his 14 years senior, who provides him moral and material support.

1879 - Attends Meynert's courses in psychiatry. His sole interest is the neurological aspect of issues under debate.

1880 - A year of military service. Breuer provides treatment to Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.). Freud translates 4 essays by Stuart Mills. He is not willing to dedicate himself to medical practice but rather to research or teaching. .

1881 - A delayed award of a doctor's degree in medicine.

1882 - Given the material difficulties he is undergoing, Freud cannot dedicate himself to a career in research. He meets Martha Bernays (of family of Jewish intellectuals) and intends to get married with her. In November, Breuer talks to him about the Anna O. case, which had been interrupted in June.

1883 - Joins Meynert's service in the Psychiatric Hospital.

1884 - Discovers the analgesic properties of cocaine. Carl Koller is the one publishing a successful study in that respect. Freud himself uses cocaine as a tonic but prescribes it to his friend Fleischl who was morphine addicted, thereby aggravating his situation [learn more]. He is criticized in medical circles. He starts treating "nervous" disorders by means of electrotherapy and applies W. Erb's method. He at the same time devised a method for coloring neurologic preparations (for the microscope) and publishes an article in that respect as well as a monograph on coke.

1885 - Hold a temporary position in a private clinic where hypnosis is used. He destroys all his documents in April. He is appointed Privatdozent, then is awarded a grant for a study tour and chooses to go to Paris, to visit Charcot at the Salpetriere Hospital. He is able to observe the manifestations of hysteria and the effects of hypnosis and suggestion here. Charcot leaves him with special impression. Freud volunteers to translate his lectures.