Monuments to this illustrious native of Lika can be found both in our country and across all corners of the globe, while his earthly remains rest in Belgrade.
How did a boy, the son of an Orthodox priest in the Austrian Empire who was always proud of his Serbian heritage, become the greatest name in science and the pride of our people for all eternity?
Baptised in a Serbian church
Nikola was born in the small village of Smiljan in Lika, which at the time belonged to the Military Frontier, a borderland region of the Austrian Empire. He was baptised in the Serbian Orthodox Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Smiljan as Nikolaj, named after his grandfather.
Nikola’s father, Milutin, was a Serbian Orthodox priest. Born in 1819 into a family of Military Frontier guardsmen, he was an educated man, a highly gifted writer and poet, and the owner of a rich library where Nikola spent his childhood reading and learning foreign languages. He fought for the rights of Serbian schools and churches, writing in support of the Serbs’ freedom to practice their Orthodox faith in the Austrian Empire for the newspaper Srbski Dnevnik (The Serbian Daily).
Tesla’s mother, Georgina – whom everyone called Đuka – came from the prominent Mandić family of Serbian heritage from Gračac. She was the eldest daughter of Priest Nikola Mandić, the archpriest of Gračac, in a family of eight children. Two of Archpriest Nikola’s sons, Nikola’s maternal uncles, were also Orthodox priests. Although Đuka was illiterate, she was an exceptionally practical woman who invented many useful tools for household chores. She possessed an extraordinary memory, effortlessly reciting thousands of verses from Serbian epic poetry and retelling Njegoš’s The Mountain Wreath to Nikola.
Nikola had a brother named Dane and three sisters: Angelina, Milka, and Marica. Dane tragically died after falling from a horse when Nikola was just five years old. This death devastated Nikola’s parents and cast a shadow over his entire life. Dane had been an exceptionally gifted child, and any success Nikola achieved after his passing only served to remind his parents of their lost son. Due to these sorrowful circumstances, Nikola grew up as a very insecure boy.
The surname Tesla and family origins
There are several theories regarding the origins of the Tesla family. According to one, the Teslas originate from the Draganić clan in Banjani, while another traces them to the Komnenović clan in Banjani in Old Herzegovina. According to local lore, while building a church, the Komnenović family got into an altercation with the craftsmen, which escalated into bloody clashes. As a result, one branch of the Komnenović family moved from Tupan to another part of Banjani, earning the nickname Čivije (nails), and their descendants still live there today. The other branch relocated to Lika and were named Tesla after the tesla – an adze, a type of woodworking tool.
According to the accounts of writer Jovan Dučić, the Teslas originated from Old Herzegovina, belonging to the Rudinjani tribe from the village of Pilatovci. Another theory suggests that a distant ancestor of Nikola’s had a prominent upper jaw, making it look as though he could chop things with his teeth like an adze. He was nicknamed Tesla, which eventually became the family surname.
Relocation to Gospić
In 1862, when Nikola completed the first grade of primary school, Milutin Tesla moved his family to Gospić, where he was ordained as an archpriest. Nikola finished the remaining three years of primary school and his lower gymnasium education in Gospić. Nikola was deeply unhappy about the move, later writing:
“By the time I reached the age of six, we moved to Gospić. This change of residence was a true misfortune for me. My heart almost broke at the parting from our pigeons, chickens, and sheep, and our magnificent flock of geese… In our new house, I felt like a literal prisoner, watching unfamiliar people pass by through the thick window curtains. My bashfulness was so intense that I would have sooner faced a roaring lion than meet one of those town daddies who strolled up and down.”
In Gospić, Nikola became famous for the speed with which he solved mathematical problems. As a seven-year-old, he helped firefighters pump water from a river. He was also remarkably gifted at foreign languages, mastering German, French, and Italian as a child. He loved reading passionately, devouring almost every book in his father’s vast library. His father eventually forbade him from reading, fearing he would ruin his eyesight, as Nikola went to extremes by reading under the dim light of a candle all night long.
Moving to Karlovac and later studies in Graz
In 1870, at the age of 14, he moved to Karlovac to live with his aunt and uncle so he could attend the Higher Real Gymnasium. He graduated early, completing the curriculum in just three years. “Under the influence of my physics professor, I became deeply interested in electricity,” Nikola recalled many years later. While in Karlovac, during severe floods, Nikola contracted malaria due to the heavy presence of mosquitoes, an illness he suffered from for a long time.
After matriculating, he returned to Gospić and, on his very first day back, contracted cholera while still not fully recovered from malaria. He was bedridden for nine months, virtually unable to move. His condition was so dire that the doctors despaired. His father had originally wanted Nikola to become a priest, but under these grim circumstances, Nikola managed to persuade his father to promise that, instead of seminary, he would allow him to study engineering.
“My strength completely left me, and for the second time, I found myself on my deathbed. In one of the moments I thought would be my last, my father burst into the room. Even today, I remember how pale he was as he tried to comfort me. ‘Perhaps,’ I told him, ‘I could get well if you let me study engineering.’ ‘You will go to the best technical school in the world,’ he solemnly declared, and I knew he truly meant it… To everyone’s utter amazement, I was resurrected like Lazarus,” Tesla recounted years later.
Milutin Tesla managed to exempt his frail son from military service. Once he recovered from his illness, Nikola travelled to Graz, where he enrolled in electrical engineering studies in 1875. By that time, he already spoke nine languages, despite being only 19 years old. He studied almost every waking moment, sleeping for only four hours a day and passing his exams with the highest possible marks.
Dropping out and gambling troubles
His professors grew worried that Nikola was studying too hard, and his peers began to tease him for his obsessive work ethic. It was precisely during this time that he began researching what would become his greatest invention: alternating current (AC). However, he also fell into gambling, wasting his tuition money on bad wagers and running up debts. He left the university before graduating in 1878 and moved to Marburg (modern-day Maribor), where he found employment with an engineer.
He severed all ties with his relatives, feeling deeply humiliated by his failure. After some time, his father managed to track him down and brought him back to Gospić, where Nikola began working as a teacher at the Real Gymnasium. Shortly after his return home, his father passed away on 30 April 1879. The following year, Nikola decided to move to Prague to finish his studies in accordance with his father’s wishes.
A year later, he abandoned his studies, refusing to be a financial burden to his impoverished family any longer. He moved to Budapest, where he found employment at a telegraph company called the American Telephone Company. There, some of the world’s major breakthroughs became accessible to him, including the work of Thomas Edison. Nikola spent hours after work studying the company’s new equipment. It was during this period that the idea for the rotating magnetic field first came to him.
Tesla possessed an extraordinary capacity for vivid visualisation; he could see the minutest details of any concept he formulated in his mind. Thanks to this, he created astonishing inventions throughout his life. However, Nikola’s constantly racing mind would not allow his body to rest, leaving him frequently ill and physically weak.
In 1882, he moved to Paris to work as an engineer for the Continental Edison Company, tasked with improving electrical equipment. He soon went on a business trip to Strasbourg, where, in late 1883, he patented the induction motor, which utilised the principle of the rotating magnetic field of alternating currents.
Departure for America and the Rift with Edison
Armed with a letter of recommendation from his manager at the Edison Company in Paris, Charles Batchelor – which famously read, “I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man” – Tesla set off to meet Thomas Edison in America. He arrived in New York in the spring of 1884 with just four cents in his pocket, his money having been stolen aboard the ship. Edison hired him immediately, tasking him with upgrading and redesigning his direct current (DC) dynamos.
Tesla, however, did not care for Edison at all. In their very first conversation, he was shocked by Edison’s questions about Count Dracula, an allusion to the proximity between Transylvania and Tesla’s birthplace. Edison even asked Tesla if he had ever tasted human flesh, to which an appalled Nikola replied, “No.” Edison viewed the Balkan peoples through an elitist lens, considering them barbarians. Tesla was deeply disillusioned by the man, and the two soon parted ways.
Edison proved to be an unscrupulous businessman. He had offered Tesla $50,000 (roughly a million dollars today) to redesign his inefficient direct current machines once the job was completed – an offer Nikola naturally accepted. He worked on the task for nearly a year. When he finished and requested his payment, Edison replied: “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humour.” Tesla never saw the funny side of the joke. He resigned from the company in early 1885 with the intention of founding his own.
Tesla’s alternating current was vastly more efficient and cheaper than the direct current Edison championed, leading Edison to try and sabotage Nikola at every turn. He went to great lengths to convince the public that alternating current was lethal, travelling to town fairs and electrocuting animals (cats, dogs, and in one instance, an elephant) before the media. Out of a morbid desire to tarnish Tesla’s reputation, a major “invention” was born, sponsored by Edison: the electric chair. Tesla debunked Edison’s scare tactics by passing high-frequency AC current through his own body to illuminate lamps, proving its safety.
Founding his own company and obtaining citizenship
In 1886, Tesla founded his own company in New York, the Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing. The venture was highly successful initially, and after a year of operations, it was featured on the front cover of the prestigious electrical engineering magazine, Electrical Review. However, internal conflict soon plagued the company. Investors eventually ousted him from his own firm, forcing Nikola to take up manual labour just to survive.
While working as a ditch digger, he deeply impressed his foreman with his technical knowledge. The foreman introduced him to the engineer Alfred S. Brown, who, alongside a prominent attorney friend, helped form a new company that marked the beginning of Nikola Tesla’s meteoric rise.
In 1887, he successfully constructed the first brushless alternating current electric motor, demonstrating it before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). He also began working with George Westinghouse in the laboratories of Westinghouse’s firm.
In April 1887, Tesla began researching what would later be known as X-rays, using a single-node vacuum tube. In 1891, he patented the Tesla coil, and sold his patents for polyphase systems – capable of transmitting electricity over long distances – to Westinghouse. For the use of these patents between 1888 and 1897, Tesla received around $100,000 (equivalent to several million dollars today).
At the age of 35, on 30 July 1891, the Americans recognised that they had the greatest genius of all time in their midst and granted him US citizenship. He became the vice-president of the AIEE. In 1892, he travelled across Europe giving lectures and attempting to secure investors for his polyphase alternating current system.
His mother’s Death and visit to Belgrade
While staying in Paris, he received a telegram informing him that his mother was dying. He rushed to Gospić immediately, finding her bedridden and frail. Her final words to him were: “You’ve arrived, Nidžo, my pride.” She passed away on 4 April 1892, and Tesla remained in Gospić for several weeks to rest.
From 1 to 3 June 1892, Tesla visited Belgrade. He arrived at the invitation of Đorđe Stanojević, a physicist, professor, and future rector of the University of Belgrade. He was given a grand welcome, received in an audience by King Aleksandar Obrenović, and decorated with the Order of St. Sava. Tesla then delivered a famous welcoming address to the students and professors of Belgrade’s Grand School in the building that houses the university’s rectorate today, stating:
“As you can see and hear, I have remained a Serb even across the ocean, where I conduct my research. You should do the same, and through your knowledge and labour, elevate the glory of Serbdom throughout the world.”
On that occasion, the famous poet Jovan Jovanović Zmaj recited a poem titled “A Welcome to Nikola Tesla on His Arrival in Belgrade,” which he had written especially for the event. Tesla was deeply moved by the poem; he wept and kissed Zmaj’s hand. Nikola loved poetry dearly, knew many sections of The Mountain Wreath by heart, and even wrote an essay for American readers about his favourite poet, titled “Zmaj Jovan Jovanović – The Greatest Serbian Poet of Today.” He translated Zmaj’s poems into English, eager to introduce him to the American public.
Niagara Falls in the colours of the Serbian flag
In the years that followed, Tesla conducted numerous experiments and demonstrations, showcasing them at world expositions. These were the most creative years of Nikola Tesla’s career. He invented the remote-controlled boat, an electrical ignition system for internal combustion engines, and more.
In 1896, Tesla’s polyphase alternating current system achieved the world’s first long-distance transmission of electrical energy, carrying power from a hydroelectric plant utilizing the energy of Niagara Falls to the city of Buffalo. Out of thirteen total patents used at Niagara, nine belonged to Tesla.
The International Nikola Tesla Day festival is celebrated on 9 July, during which Niagara Falls is illuminated for 15 minutes in the colours of the Serbian flag. This date is also an official holiday of the city.
The first power plant in Serbia to operate entirely on Tesla’s systems was the hydroelectric plant on the Đetinja River near Užice. It began operating in 1900, just four years after the plant at Niagara.
When he turned 41, he filed his first radio patent (No. 645,576), and subsequently demonstrated a remote-controlled boat capable of submerging in Chicago. In 1899, he moved to Colorado Springs to continue his experimentation, as his high-voltage electrical experiments had become too dangerous for his New York laboratory.
In his laboratory there, he proved that the Earth is a conductor. By creating discharges of several million volts, he produced artificial lightning bolts tens of metres long. He claimed to have recorded radio signals of extraterrestrial origin in his laboratory. The scientific community rejected his announcement and his data. He noted in detail that the signals arrived in groups of one, two, three, and four clicks together. Tesla later spent a portion of his life trying to send signals to Mars.
Bankruptcy and the clash with Marconi
The following year, he returned to New York, having exhausted all his funds and finding himself unable to pay the bills for his Colorado Springs laboratory. He entered into a bitter dispute with Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian inventor experimenting with wireless telegraphy, who was widely credited with the invention of radio. Tesla, on the other hand, insisted upon and demanded his rightful claim to the invention.
Marconi would go on to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 for his work in radio. In 1915, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Marconi, seeking judicial protection for his radio rights; however, by 1916, he went bankrupt due to astronomical legal fees. Tesla’s foundational work was largely forgotten by the public, though the US Supreme Court ultimately vindicated him in 1943 – months after his death – by overturning Marconi’s patents and declaring Tesla the true inventor of radio.
In 1901, Tesla began working on the Wardenclyffe Project, a massive tower he believed would wirelessly transmit messages, telephone calls, and even facsimile images across the globe. One theory suggests his ultimate goal was to transmit electrical power wirelessly as well. He secured funding from the powerful financier J. Pierpont Morgan, who believed he would reap massive financial rewards from the project. However, Morgan eventually withdrew his backing, claiming he lost faith in the venture, while others suggest he pulled out upon realising Tesla’s true intention: to provide humanity with free electrical energy.
Determined to finish the project, Tesla invested tens of thousands of dollars of his own money, but ultimately failed to realise his dream. The tower remained unfinished and was finally demolished during the First World War under the pretext that it could be used by German spies. The materials were sold off to settle a fraction of Tesla’s debts as he teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.
In the ensuing years, he received several accolades, including the prestigious Edison Gold Medal in 1916 for his discovery of the polyphase alternating current system. Ironically, Tesla received a medal bearing the name of his bitterest rival – the man who had fought against his vision and lost the battle of the currents, yet amassed a fortune, leaving Tesla with little more than accolades.
Loneliness in his twilight years
In 1931, Time magazine featured Tesla on its front cover to celebrate his 75th birthday. In the final years of his life, he became obsessed with cleanliness, avoided shaking hands out of a profound fear of germs and infection, and developed a fixation on the number three. He refused to stay in a hotel room whose number was not divisible by three, and required three linen napkins to be set beside his plate before every meal.
He was deeply lonely and found solace in spending time with pigeons. He walked through parks, feeding them and calling to them gently, and even nursed sick pigeons back to health in his hotel room. The birds approached him without fear, often nesting on his shoulders.
Tesla never married and never started a family. He lived in hotels his entire life; during the years he earned well, these were the finest and most expensive establishments. In his old age, he lived modestly, and the final hotel he resided in was the Hotel New Yorker. In July 1942, King Petar II Karađorđević visited Tesla in his apartment.
Faith and death
Regarding faith, Tesla once remarked:
“Death does not exist, and with that realization, the fear of it vanishes. And remember: no man who ever existed has truly died. They have transformed into light and continue to exist as such. The secret lies in returning those light particles to their original state. A return to one of the previous energies. Christ and a few others knew this secret. I was searching for a way to preserve human energy. It is one of the forms of light in the Soul, sometimes equal to the supreme celestial light. I did not search for this for my own sake, but for the good of all. I believe that my discovery will make human life easier and more bearable, and steer humanity toward spirituality and morality.”
Tesla spent most of the latter half of 1942 bedridden, spiritually resilient but physically frail. He refused to allow visitors into his room, including his closest companions from his earlier years. He passed away on Christmas Day, 7 January 1943. Early the following morning, a maid named Alice Monaghan entered his room and found him dead. He looked perfectly peaceful, as though resting, with a faint smile on his gaunt face. The genius died just as he had lived – alone.
(Kurir, 10.07.2026)