Controversies over the nationality of famous people are nothing new. Was Albert Einstein German, Swiss, or primarily Jewish? Was the father of modern astronomy Nicolaus Copernicus Polish or German? And Hitler – German or German-Austrian? Mozart too… Maria Callas – American or Greek?
There are also figures whose identity was not disputed during their lifetime, but later became the subject of manipulation for political purposes. Examples include the attempts at posthumous Croatization of Ruđer Bošković and Ivo Andrić, two centuries younger, who was very explicit about belonging to the Serbian cultural and literary tradition.
An example of a crude attempt at such manipulation is provided by the promotional film “Nikola Tesla’s Beautiful Croatia,” which is shown several times a day at the popular Europa-Park in the German town of Rust, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, not far from the French border on the Rhine River. The video promises visitors “a breathtaking journey through the dreamlike landscape of Croatia, the homeland of inventor Nikola Tesla”:
“Immerse yourself in the fascinating story of Nikola Tesla and experience Croatia like never before… Experience the beauty of Croatia and the captivating story based on Tesla’s visionary invention…”
This announcement, of course, has one major flaw. It ignores the fact that Nikola Tesla was a Serb by nationality, the son of the Orthodox priest Milutin, who bore the name of a prominent Serbian king from the Middle Ages.
Tesla’s native language was Serbian and he wrote in that language almost exclusively in Cyrillic. His uncle, the brother of Tesla’s mother Georgina, was the distinguished theologian and metropolitan of Dabro-Bosnia, Nikolaj Mandić. Tesla himself was openly proud of such distinguished origins on both sides.
Tesla was born in the Habsburg Empire, on the territory of the then Military Border (Militärgrenze), in the village of Smiljan, which today belongs to the Republic of Croatia. He was not a Croat by blood, by personal feeling, or by any other criterion. During a visit to Belgrade in 1892, Tesla made a now famous statement:
“If I am lucky enough to realize at least some of my ideas, it will be a benefit to all of humanity. If these hopes of mine are fulfilled, the sweetest thought for me will be that it is the work of a Serb.” On that occasion, Tesla said in a speech to Belgrade students: “I – as you see and hear – have remained a Serb even across the sea… You should be the same, and with your knowledge and work raise the glory of Serbdom in the world.”
A year later, in an article for the American Century Magazine, Tesla said about the Battle of Kosovo:
“Europe will never be able to repay the great debt it owes to the Serbs for having, at the sacrifice of their own freedom, stopped that barbaric invasion… There is hardly a people who has experienced a worse fate than the Serbians. From the height of its splendor, when the empire encompassed almost the entire northern part of the Balkan Peninsula and a large part of the territory that now belongs to Austria, the Serbian people suddenly fell into hopeless slavery, after the fatal battle on the Kosovo Field.”
“You know, of course, that I am a Serb, descended from one of the oldest lineages, given that my mother’s family name dates back to ancient times, as do other names among our people,” Tesla wrote to a prominent American friend in 1921.
The implication, not only of the Croatian filmmakers in Euroland but also of many Croatian officials and propagandists, is clear, that Tesla is a “Croat.” The claim that the great scientist belongs to the Croatian national corpus simply because he was born on the territory of present-day Croatia, however, is not only false but also absurd.
It would be equally absurd to claim that the doyen of German classical philosophy, Immanuel Kant, was Russian by nationality because he was born, spent his entire life, and was ultimately buried in Königsberg, a Prussian city that has belonged to the Russian Federation since 1945 and is now called Kaliningrad.
Similarly, it would not occur to anyone to classify the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, as Czech because he was born in the Moravian town of Příbor (Freiberg in Mähren in German). Příbor was also part of the Habsburg Empire at the time, as was Tesla’s Smiljan, and today belongs to the Czech Republic.
It is difficult to imagine a film about the beauty of Germany that features Albert Einstein as a promoter of Germany as a tourist destination, while ignoring his Jewish origins. That would undoubtedly be characterized as a scandalous forgery and an unacceptable appropriation of a great man who is dead and thus unable to defend himself from a posthumous attack on his national identity.
In the same way, affirming the facts about Nikola Tesla’s Serbian nationality is, first and foremost, a debt to the great scientist himself. It is also a debt to the truth as such.
The Serbian community in America has a duty and obligation to present these facts everywhere and always, wherever and whenever even a hint of falsifications about Tesla’s identity appears.
