Jean LUNT-MARINOVIC

On the occasion of the Tesla anniversary in July 2006 the American Ambassador Robert Bradtke visited Tesla's birthplace, Smiljan, north of Gospic in Lika, Croatia with the Croatian and Serbian leadership. Bradtke's message about the Tesla anniversary had a diplomatic tone, as he recalled a message from President Bush to President Mesic that ''Nikola Tesla is proof that real greatness surpasses national borders and differences''.   

Elsewhere around Croatia, the 150th anniversary of Nikola Tesla's birth has been marketed as evidence of some sort of mythical rapprochement between Serbs and Croats, or as a unifying force in the Balkans.

The Croatian media and leadership have alleged that at some point during his life, Tesla uttered that he was equally proud of his Serb origin and his Croatian homeland. This was never written down by Tesla however, so it is difficult to verify. ( Editors note: Contrary to the authors opinion, in fact, in a Western Union Telegram, from Nikola Tesla, to Croatian Leader Dr. Vlatko Macek on May 25, 1936 he stated the following:

Thank you very much on your congratulation and kindness.

I am equally proud of my Serbian origin and my Croatian fatherland.

Long live all Yugoslavs.

-Nikola Tesla.)

Also in Croatia an alleged Opinion poll chose Tesla as Croatia's 'greatest son'. This Opinion poll is just as unrepresentative of feeling in Croatia as was that other recent Opinion poll about Tito which alleged that Tito was the greatest Croat.

Note: Are the greatest Croats in Opinion Polls today always those who represent Yugoslavia or Serbia instead of Croatian people? One would wonder why Croatian people resisted Yugoslav aggression if these Opinion polls are genuine. 

The Year 2006 was proclaimed 'Nikola Tesla Year' by the Croatian government and by UNESCO and the Serbian government.

Around the world however, in contrast, Tesla has been celebrated with great fanfare as Serbian, in particular in Belgrade, in Niagara Falls, on many UK or American websites and in Western Australia. Below are a few examples of the many claims about Nikola Tesla on the internet.

The Washington Times headline claims 'Tesla's Memory a healing force' (16 July 06). On the Institute for War & Peace Reporting website, Drago Hedl claims 'Inventor's Memory Brings Croats and Serbs together' (20 July 06).

The Setimes website claims 'Croats, Serbs put aside differences to honour Tesla' (13 July 06). And the Tesla Memorial Society of New York claim on their website that 'Nikola Tesla is a unifying force for peace in the Balkans'; and that the 'Proclamation of Nikola Tesla Day through United Nations will increase the brotherhood and peace in the Balkans and throughout the world'!   

On the Western Australian Science website Serbs celebrate the 'Serbian-American' who lit up the world (14 June 06). The Canadian Serbian community celebrated Tesla's anniversary at Niagara Falls calling Tesla 'the greatest son of the Serb nation'.

And the Archive of the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade has been named by UNESCO as 'Memory of the World'. (Tesla Society website) And in the UK, David Bowie is to star in a new film about Tesla entitled 'The Prestige'.

Nikola Tesla's Ancestry

Talk about Tesla's ancestry was different during his lifetime however, for example when a different American Consul visited Gospic, as told in the chapter, 'A Night in Lika' in a book by Dorothea Orr in 1936. The US Ambassador had visited decades ago in the early 1930's not long after Tesla had appeared on the front of Time Magazine (Vol XV III No. 3, 1931 20 July).

On that occasion in Gospic the US Ambassador didn't see any reason to mention Tesla's ancestry even though the centralist Serbian dictatorship ruled over Croatia! Even in America, during Tesla's lifetime, little interest appeared in his ethnicity. Any major public association with Serbian identity seems to have taken place after Tesla's death for political gain.

Tesla's anniversary was not the first time a large gathering was attracted in his name. In January 1943 Serbia or Royalist Yugoslavia was an important WWII western ally, and Tesla's funeral was obviously a convenient platform to express this alliance.

Tesla's funeral was a large 'Yugoslav' event in New York. And, at his eulogy the famous Mayor of New York City, LaGuardia, born to Italian and Hungarian Jewish parents from Trieste, described Tesla as the son of a Greek clergyman who had been born in Austria-Hungary and graduated from school in Croatia! He would have chosen his words carefully.

LaGuardia had also worked in the US Consulate in Trieste before working at Ellis Island as a translator, eventually rising to the rank of major on the Italian Austrian WWI frontline, then becoming director general for UNRRA in 1946.  

Tesla's father, whose real family name was Draganic, had been ordained at what had originally been a Greek Orthodox Church, not a Serbian Orthodox church. If there was any portion of Serbian ethnicity in the Draganic or maternal Mandic line, it would have originated several hundred years before his ancestors' arrival in Hercegovina.

Tesla did not attend a Serbian school because none existed at the time in Croatia. Some of the Orthodox churches throughout Dalmatia and Lika we see today were not there when Nikola Tesla was born.

The 18th century church of St. Peter & Paul was renovated several times, but for some unexplained reason it appears that after WWII its facade was changed from the original architectural style to an earlier pilaster style.                            

How long does a person's family have to reside in a place before they identify with its culture? In America it takes about two generations, or less.

Even prominent American ethnic groups today are worried about the rapid assimilation rate in spite of multiculturalism. In contrast, in the case of those talking about the Orthodox in Croatia, even after several hundred years of settlement there, Serbs seem to be the exception.

In spite of all this, however, even Tesla identified himself as a Croat on his arrival at the Castle Garden Immigration office in Manhattan in 1884, even though the Croatian region of his birth was administered from Austria and not directly from Croatia at the time Tesla was living there. In other words, Tesla did not have to say he was from Croatia, and could have said he was from Austria, so he freely made his choice.

In any case, Tesla was not the type of individual to overly concern himself emotionally with other people, politics or national fanfare, as it has been acknowledged today that he displayed classic autistic-savant characteristics (similar to well-known Temple Grandin).

The one time pro-Yugoslav sculptor Ivan Mestrovic, of Croatian birth, had created monuments to honour Tesla as a 'Yugoslav', not as a 'Serb', in America and Belgrade.

Mestrovic's pro-Yugoslav sentiments turned to great regret later in his life however.

''Neither the exiled politicians, nor myself'', he wrote ''are called to say the last word on relations between Croatia and Serbia and the relations among the republics of Yugoslavia. Only the peoples of those republics, and of the autonomous regions as well, will have this word. Politicians can and will search for a common platform, but as I said, the final decision is up to the people on the basis of equal rights. A contented population represents the greatest and only real strength of each nation (state)....'' (Source: Jareb & Mirth)

And there are other reasons to question the ethnic origin of Nikola Tesla. Tesla's ashes had not been held at an American Serbian church ground, nor was there ever a bust of Tesla by the Serbian church where Mihajlo Pupin's monument can be found.

In addition, if Tesla had really been Serbian, would it not be the case that the Serbian-born scientist and Serbian activist (and one-time Serbian Ambassador in US) M. Pupin in America would have come to his aid in 1911 (Serbia was a recognized nation at that time) when Tesla had a mental breakdown due to the lack of funding for his Wardenclyffe project on Long Island.

Indeed, one website which highlights how Tesla has been virtually erased from American history attributes this to the fact that Tesla did not have large segments of the general public complaining on his behalf. It would appear obvious that until recently Tesla has been almost ignored by Serbia, an observation which is surprising when one considers the might of the former Yugoslav or Serbian lobby in America! 

Only after his death did Tesla become more important to Belgrade. The main source of claims to Tesla's Serbian ancestry seem to have originated from Sava N. Kosanovic, a member of the Yugoslav Mission to the USA in New York during WWII.

Tesla's sister had married a Serb, and Sava Kosanovic was their son suggesting perhaps that Tesla's association with Serbian ethnicity occurred indirectly through marriage of his relatives, and not through his ancestors.

The Politics of Reconciliation

The expression of one's ethnic or religious identity is a basic human right enshrined by the United Nations Charter. It is questionable whether or not the new EU history project in the Balkans will be able to accommodate those human rights in Croatia however.

'Reconciliation through education' is the motto adopted by the Stability Pact in its new Balkan 'History Workbook' project. This project is being developed by the Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation which will present history from a multi-perspective approach, allegedly to eradicate ethnocentrism.

The EU's Stability Pact will be called the Regional Cooperation Council in the future and that name change indicates that the next phase of their agenda in the former Yugoslavia is being launched, namely 'conflict resolution'. Conflict Resolution doctrine theorizes that the conflict management process can be thought of as a continuum from total destruction of the other to complete integration with the other'.

This doctrine artificially imposes reconciliation between former adversaries by building upon the coexistence which was in place before the conflict began in a process of 'Peace Learning'. It would seem that the EU 'Reconciliation through Education' advocates are experimenting with the 'Peace Learning' theory.

The disturbing part of this process is that its foundation rests on 'what existed before'. Thus, in place of the former Yugoslavia, we have advocates of an artificial Western Balkan state, with the unstable foundation of the alleged previous peace of the 'negotiated social order'.

The problem is that the previous 'social order' in the former Yugoslavia translated into Serbian-led control of the workplace, education, Orthodox religion, government and military. Foreigners who were shocked at the Serbian bombing of Sarajevo had believed that a successful coexistence existed there before because of the state-manufactured illusion conjured up for the Winter Olympics. 

Unfortunately, there is no foundation of justice and human rights to build on from the former Yugoslav state. From the perspective of Croatian families who have been subjected to genocide under the former Yugoslavia, their sacrifice for freedom will now be reinterpreted again, this time in schools.

The Croatian leaders should ask why their former masters get to alter the new EU history workbooks before they do. From past experience Croats know that this alternative 'multi-perspective' history will serve Serbian nationalism in Croatia, and never reconciliation, because there is no evidence that Serbian nationalism has moderated.

Some Conclusions

The reason for the Serbian ascendancy in Croatia is more complex than mere irredentism. An east-west struggle between superpowers lurks behind the scenes. 

Croatia, like Greece, has contributed more to western civilization than eastern, but the conversion from Greek Orthodoxy to Serbian Orthodoxy in Croatian territory took Croatia away from western development.

In this essay I have given evidence to show that Croatian society has always been heterogeneous. And, I have shown that the Orthodox believers in Croatia have worshipped in their own Greek Orthodox churches during the past thousand or so years.

I have also discussed how those Greek Orthodox Churches in Croatia were taken over by the Serbian Patriarchate during Hungarian/Austrian occupation and the former Yugoslavia.

For centuries the Orthodox people in Croatia have been used as 'cannon fodder' and vassals, but not always by the East, as under the Ottomans and the Austro/Hungarian empire. The Venetians also used the Orthodox settlers to fight for their interests against the East. Under the Serbian-led former Yugoslavia however Croatia was taken again into the eastern bloc.

Even today the Serbian minority in Croatia wants to use all the Orthodox numbers for their 'greater-Serbia' ambitions. In 1991 Serbs in Croatia may have failed in their attempt to link territory to the issue of minority rights but in the 21st century there is evidence that their goals have not yet changed.

For example around the world Serbian publicity about the 150th anniversary of Nikola Tesla reveals the emphasis placed on his alleged Serbian ancestry, even though contradictory evidence exists and his ancestors had lived in Croatian territory for centuries. Indeed, nowhere has it ever been written that Tesla's ancestry reaches back to 'Serbia' per se.

Actually, the claims go only back to his origins in 'Herzegovina', where the absurd Serbian claim that all Vlachs there were of Serbian ancestry is without foundation.

It would seem that some in the European Union want to 'contain' Croatia, and to do this they are bowing to Serbian intransigence in Croatia and in Bosnia & Herzegovina. This pro-Serbian sentiment in the EU illustrates how an east-west struggle still exists there, one reason why the European Union still has no constitution or unified foreign policy. 

An atmosphere of greater religious freedom and equality in Croatia would go a long way towards reconciliation. For example, much confusion exists in Catholic sources about 19th century Croatian history. Conflicting information, with missing dates and incorrect sequencing of events, creates a maze which allows Serbian propaganda to continue unchallenged. It's as if the Nikola Tesla Museum complex is the reincarnation of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The following question needs to be answered. Why is lobbying for the creation of a Croatian Orthodox Church not 'politically correct' - after all, if Montenegro and Macedonia can have an Orthodox Church, why not Croatia?

The metamorphosis of Croatian Orthodoxy under Serbian leadership for the past century has been the source of destabilization, and until the issue is resolved no reconciliation will occur at a grass roots level. Will the EU's alternative perspective 'history workbooks' reflect the will of the Croatian people?

Perhaps only Croatian membership in NATO can create an east-west balance of power in Croatia. One thing is for certain, politically correct manipulation of history will not lead to reconciliation.

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