The Beacon of a Genius at the Location of the Airport

The Memorial to Nikola Tesla at the “Nikola Tesla” Airport Will Welcome the Passengers from Around the World

Written by: Miljana Kralj

At the location where people from all parts of the world meet each other on their arrival to Serbia, at the Belgrade airport, which, from this year on, will bear the name of the most renowned scientist of the Serbian origin, the memorial to Nikola Tesla, the work of the sculptor Drinka Radovanovic, has now been set up. The Republic Committee for the Celebration of the 150^th anniversary of the birth of the genius from Smiljan, which was presided by the Serbian premier Vojislav Kostunica, reached a decision to give a special meaning to this jubilee by erecting the memorial, for which the author had been awarded the second place prize at the international competition in Canada during the preceding year. The monument is the gift by the Electric Power Industry of Serbia, by which they repay the debt to their countryman, the innovator, since on the basis of his patents the first hydro power plant was built in the history of the mankind.

The airport is, in the opinion of the sculptor, an ideal place for the memorial to a Serb who made the whole world his debtor. Tesla will welcome all guest travellers here and wish farewell to all those who follow his steps to proudly represent their nation in foreign countries. The sculpture of bronze, more than three meters high, presenting the famous inventor in the prime of his life and creative energy, will be equally observable from the direction of both the airport building and access to the airport.

- Tesla was in no way a modest man: neither in his beauty, nor in his knowledge or intelligence - explains the author the reason why is her Tesla the elegant gentleman with the self-confident look in his eyes. - He was above everybody else, and he was aware of that. That is exactly why he raised himself above the material world and recognized that the real power dwells in the spiritual one. If he hadn’t reasoned like that, he would have probably been the wealthiest man in the world; and, yet, to him the houses and landed property were just a passing thought. With what he had, and that was the power of genius, he granted himself a place in all eternity.

- The basic thing, nevertheless, is that in Tesla’s character the spiritual beauty and the physical beauty are attached to one another - stresses the author of the memorial. - At the photo that I made use of to make the sculpture, which was taken when he was 39 years of age and, based on which, his character is best preserved with people, he has this “under the eye” look and a slightly bowed head, like the pigeons he liked so much. And pigeon is the symbol of the Holy Spirit.

In 1992, she had sculptured the bust of our eminent scientist “out of pure love”. And while she was on her holiday, her work was borrowed from the artistic foundry “Braca Jeremic” and included into the competition of the Radio Beograd. When a member of the jury, Zoran Gluscevic, now the deceased, called her and informed her officially that she won the competition, she thought that it was some kind of misunderstanding, since none of her works had been sent by her to any competition whatsoever.

- It was not my intention to win the first prize when I was sculpturing the image of Tesla; he simply came to me, as if I was chosen by his will - explains the artist, whose bust of Nikola Tesla, apart from the Radio Beograd, adorns the premises of the radio stations in Novi Sad, Prague, Budapest...

Tesla has in this way entered permanently into the creative art of Drinka, discreetly, as she emphasized, by his own will. She did small-sized, middle-sized and large reliefs with his image, small busts which were offered as the competition prizes. One of her reliefs has been given to the famous actress and the minister of culture of Greece - Melina Mercouri.