“I’m sorry, but Tesla was an American” … the words of the American ambassador in Belgrade, Anthony Godfrey, have been “rolling” in my head for days. A little jokingly, and more in reality, he said them at the airport that bears Tesla’s name, sending off the Air Serbia plane that will fly to New York in the future with Tesla’s face on the fuselage.
You may have thought I was writing this because I was hurt or angered by his words.
No they are not!
They just made me think. It seems to me that the whole American “philosophy” fits into this sentence when it comes to nations, affiliation, attitude towards the state and life in general.
Laconically, simply and so characteristic of a representative of a great power, an American in the middle of Belgrade “puts things in their place”.
Nikola Tesla lived and worked in the United States of America, he had American citizenship and of course, the only possible conclusion follows from that – Tesla is an American!
What a lesson for us – complicated, quarreled, confused Balkans! While we are arguing, counting blood cells and developing some theories, man practically, in the “American” way, solves the equation of Tesla’s identity.
I would like us, the Balkans (and especially the Serbs), to solve them that way, without much philosophizing and unnecessary discussions.
Why is it so difficult to admit the indisputable fact that Tesla was a Serb?
Because, what else could the son of a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church be ?!
It is also true that he was born on the territory that then belonged to the Habsburg monarchy (in the so-called Military Krajina), and today to Croatia.
It is also a fact that the Ustashas in Tesla’s Smiljan, in the summer of 1941, brutally killed almost all Serbs who lived there (out of 621, 558 were killed). Among them were Nikola’s last names. He would probably end up like that, if it weren’t for science and America … if by any chance he was just another shrewd, but simple Lika peasant.
I do not believe that tourists from all over the world who visit Tesla’s birthplace even suspect that behind the church where his father served, there is a mass grave where Tesla’s compatriots, Serbs from Smiljan, rest.
The stone slab and the wooden cross that were placed in 2018 by the members of the association “Jadovno 1941” are silent guardians of innocent souls who ended up there.
It is indisputable that Serbs were killed in Smiljan in 1991 (among them were eight old men who survived the massacre from 1941) and that they are not there today.
They are almost non-existent in Gospić and the whole of Lika.
However, Nikola “returned” to the “big bells”. Three decades after the monument to the famous scientist was blown up, his bust is in Gospić again.
However, it is not placed in the same place, ie. the central town square which also bore his name (today – Stjepan Radić Square), but … Nikola is in his face again, unlike most of his compatriots.
I don’t know how those who demolished his monument in the early 1990s, changed the names of streets and schools and deleted everything reminiscent of Serbian look at it, but honestly, I’m not very interested in that.
Most Croats have long since turned a blind eye to Tesla’s origins. They realized that more important than that was his contribution to science, popularity and a name that had meanwhile become a brand. Attempts to “erase” him, as a Serb, in the early 1990s, were replaced by “convincing” that Tesla was in fact a Croat!
In the meantime, the renovated and modernized Memorial Center in Smiljan has become a tourist attraction that brings money. The monument in Gospić, which has been waiting for too long, is just a “point on and off” of the whole project!
However, whatever the motives of the Croatian and Gospić authorities, I am glad that Tesla has returned to where I cannot.
Somehow my heart is calmer when I know that his shadow is “walking” the streets of my hometown again. And although it is logical and practical what the American ambassador said, although I thank God that he went to America and indebted the world, I know that Tesla is ours and that it will always be so.
Our Nijo, with clear Lika eyes, a gentle smile and some indomitable Krajina strength !!! If it weren’t a little pretentious, I’d say we all recognize each other a bit!
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