Nikola Tesla Articles
“I was completely exhausted from pain and long vigil, and one night they took me two streets away from our house. While I lay there helplessly, I thought that my mother, while I was far from her bed, would surely give me some sign… I concluded that the conditions connected with the afterlife were very favorable, because my mother was a genius woman and especially distinguished by strong intuition. All night I waited tensely, but nothing happened until early morning when I fell asleep, or fainted, and saw a cloud carrying angelic figures of wonderful beauty, one of whom looked at me with love and gradually took on the contours of my mother. The apparition slowly floated through my room and disappeared, and I awoke to an indescribable sweet song sung by a multitude of voices. At that moment I was so sure that my mother had died that it is impossible to express in words. And that was the truth…”
Tesla in Belgrade
After that Tesla stayed for some time longer in his homeland, visited the Gomirje monastery where his uncle Petar Mandić had become a monk (which he had done in order to become Bishop of Dabar-Bosnia). Then, via Zagreb and Varaždin — where he visited his other uncle, Colonel Paja Mandić — he traveled toward Budapest.
Nikola Tesla loved the Hungarian capital very much. Beautiful memories bound him to this Central European town on the Danube. Budapest was the fourth city in the world, before Vienna, to get a telephone exchange. In that exchange, where he worked, Tesla invented, as one of his first inventions, a way to amplify the voice. There, in Budapest, the brilliant idea of the rotating magnetic field was also born. He had many close friends there too, among others the poet Laza Kostić. When a high delegation from Serbia visited him during his stay in Budapest, he gladly accepted the invitation to visit Belgrade.
“On Wednesday, the 20th of this month, at 11 o’clock in the evening, the famous electrical engineer Mr. Nikola Tesla, a Serb and citizen of free America, a world-renowned scholar whose name today interests the entire educated world, arrived in Belgrade…”
The next day the distinguished guest was received in audience by Prince Alexander Obrenović, and then by the regent Jovan Ristić. He then visited the Great School, where he examined the cabinet and collections, and then arrived at the ceremonial hall of Captain Miša’s building, where the gathered professors and students enthusiastically greeted him.
After the lecture, accompanied by professors of the Great School, he toured Kalemegdan. In the evening the Belgrade municipality gave a dinner in his honor at the Vajfert brewery. Then the poet Zmaj Jovan Jovanović, according to the chroniclers, excited and in an excited voice read his poem “Greeting to Nikola Tesla on His Arrival in Belgrade.”
Moved by the warmth of the poet’s words, Tesla approached Zmaj and kissed his hand. He otherwise held him in the highest esteem and gladly read his poetry.
Everywhere enthusiastically received and greeted, he left Belgrade on 22 May old style, or 3 June new style. Upon his return to America he gave Zmaj’s poems to his friend Robert
