Nikola Tesla Books
ZMAJ JOVAN JOVANOVICH NIKOLA TESLA is best known as an inventor. Although he dedicated his career to science, we have come across this unusual article displaying his literary side. This is a review of one of Serbia's chief poets, written by Tesla for the Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine in 1894. The Century company, New York; T. Fisher Unwin, London. The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, May 1894 October 1894. by NIKOLA TESLA Hardly is there a nation which has met with a sadder fate than the Serbian. From the height of its splendor, when the empire embraced almost the entire northern part of the Balkan peninsula and a large portion of the territory now. belonging to Austria, the Serbian nation. was plunged into abject slavery, after the fatal battle of 1389 at the Kosovo Polje, against the overwhelming Asiatic hordes.. Europe can never repay the great debt it. I owes to the Serbians for checking, by the sacrifice of their own liberty, the barbarian influx. The Poles at Vienna, under Sobieski, finished what the Serbians attempted, and were similarly rewarded for their service to civilization. It was at the Kosovo. Polje that Milosh Obilich, the noblest of Serbian heroes, fell, after killing the sultan Murat I in the very midst of his great army. Were it not that it is a historical fact, one would be apt to consider this episode a myth, evolved by contact with the Latin and Greek races. For in Milosh we see both Mucius and Leonidas, and, more than this, a martyr, for he does not die an easy death on the battle-field like the Greek, but pays for his daring deed with a death of fearful torture. It is not astonishing that the poetry of a nation. capable of producing such heroes should be pervaded with a spirit of nobility and chivalry. Even the indomitable Marko Kraljevich, the later incarnation of Serbian heroism, when vanquishing Musa, the Moslem chief, exlaims, "Woe unto me, for I have killed a better man than myself!" From that fatal battle until a recent period, it has been black night for the Serbians, with but a single star in the firmament Montenegro. In this gloom there was no hope for science, commerce, art or industry. What could they do, this brave people, save to keep up the weary fight against the oppressor? And this they did unceasingly, though the odds were twenty to one. Yet fighting merely. satisfied their wilder instincts. There was one more thing they could do, and did: the noble feats of their ancestors, the brave deeds of those who fell in the struggle for liberty, they embodied in immortal song. Thus circumstances and innate qualities made the Serbians a nation of thinkers and poets, and thus, gradually, were evolved their magnificent national poems, which were first collected by their most prolific writer, Vuk Stefanovich Karajich, who also compiled the first dictionary of the Serbian tongue, containing more than 60,000 words. These national poems "He then returned to his native city, where a prominent official position was offered him, which he accepted, but so strong were his poetical instincts that a year later he abandoned the post to devote himself entirely to literary work.... " Goethe considered fit to match the finest productions of the Greeks and Romans. What would he have thought of them had he been a Serbian? While the Serbians have been distinguished in national poetry, they have also had many individual poets who attained greatness. Of contemporaries, there is none who has grown so dear to the younger generation as Zmai lovan lovanovich. He was born in Novi Sad (Neusatz), a city at the southern border of Hungary, on November 24, 1833. Hel comes from an old and noble family, which is related to the Serbian royal house. In his earliest childhood he showed a great desire to learn by heart. the Serbian national songs which were recited to him, and even as a child he began to compose poems. His father, who was a highly cultivated and wealthy gentleman, gave him his first education in his native city. After this he went to Budapest, Prague, and Vienna, and in these cities he finished his studies in law. This was the wish of his father, but his own inclinations prompted him to take up the study of medicine. He then returned to his native city, where a prominent official position was offered him, which he accepted, but so strong were his poetical instincts that a year. later he abandoned the post to devote himself entirely to literary work. His literary career began in 1849, his first poem being printed in 1852 in a journal called "Serbian Annual Review to this, and to other journals, notably " Neven" and "Sedmica," he contributed his early productions. From that period until 1870, besides his original poems, he made many beautiful translations from Petefy and Arany, the two greatest of the Hungarian poets, and from the Russian of Lermontaf, as well as from German and other poets. In 1861 he edited the comic journal, "The Mosquito ", and in the same year he started the literary journal " Javor," and to these papers he contributed many beautiful poems. He had married in 1861, and during the few happy years that followed he produced his admirable series of lyrical poems "Giulichi, called which probably remain his masterpiece. In 1862, greatly to his regret, he discontinued his beloved journal a sacrifice which was Javor" asked of him by the great Serbian patriot, then active Miletich, who was on a political journai, in order to insure the success of the latter. " In 1863 he was elected director of an educational institution, called the He now at Budapest. Tekelianum, ardently renewed the study of medicine at the university, and took the degree of doctor of medicine. Meanwhile he did not relax his literary labors. Yet, for his countrymen, more valuable even than his splendid productions were his noble and 12
