by Marc Seifer
Whereas Josip became an officer and later a professor of mathematics, first in Gospić and then at a military academy in Austria,7 Milutin became politically active, wrote poetry, and entered the priesthood. Influenced by the philosopher Vuk Karadjich, Milutin promulgated the “Yugoslav idea” in editorials published in the local newspapers under the nom de plume Srbin Pravicich, “Man of Justice.” Tesla wrote that his father’s “style of writing was much admired…pen[ning] sentences…full of wit and satire.” He called for social equality among peoples, the need for compulsory education for children, and the creation of Serbian schools in Croatia.8
Through these articles, Milutin attracted the attention of the intellectual elite. In 1847 he married Djouka Mandić, a daughter from one of the more prominent Serbian families.9
Djouka’s maternal grandfather was Toma Budisavljevic (1777-1840), a regal, white-bearded priest who was decorated with the French Medal of Honor by Napoleon himself in 1811 for providing leadership during the French occupation of Croatia. Soka Budisavljevic, one of Toma’s seven children, followed the family tradition by marrying a Serbian minister, Nikola Mandić, who himself came from a distinguished clerical and military family. Their daughter, Djouka, who was born in 1821, was Tesla’s mother.10
Eldest daughter of eight children, Djouka’s duties increased rapidly, for her mother was stricken with failing eyesight and eventually became blind.
“My mother…was a truly great woman of rare skill and courage,” Tesla wrote. Probably due to the magnitude of her responsibilities, which included, at age sixteen, preparing for burial the bodies of an entire family stricken with cholera, Djouka never learned to read. Instead, she memorized the great epic Serbian poems and also long passages of the Bible.11
Tesla could trace his lineage to a segment of the “educated aristocracy” of the Serbian community. On both sides of the family and for generations there could be found clerical and military leaders, many of whom achieved multiple doctorates. One of Djouka’s brothers, Pajo Mandić, was a field marshal in the imperial Austro-Hungarian army. Another Mandić ran an Austrian military academy.12
Petar Mandić, a third brother and later favorite uncle of Nikola’s, met with tragedy as a young man when his wife passed away. In 1850, Petar entered the Gomirje Monastery, where he rose in the clerical hierarchy to become the regional bishop of Bosnia.13
In 1848, through the help of the Mandić name, Milutin Tesla obtained a parish at Senj,14 a northern coastal fortress located just seventy-five miles from the Italian port of Trieste. From the stone church, situated high on austere cliffs, Milutin and his new bride could overlook the blue-green Adriatic Sea and the mountainous islands of Krk, Cres, and Rab.
For eight years the Teslas lived in Senj, where they sired their first three children: Dane (pronounced Dah-nay), born in 1849, the first son, and two daughters, Angelina, born the following year, who would later become the grandmother to the current honorary head of the Tesla Memorial Society, William Terbo, and Milka, who followed two years later. As with her other two sisters and like her mother, Milka would eventually marry a Serbian Orthodox priest.
Djouka was proud of her son, Dane, who used to sit with the fishermen on the shore and bring back stories of great adventure. Like his younger brother, who was yet to be born, Dane was endowed with extraordinary powers of eidetic imagery.15
Due to a profound sermon on the subject of “labor,” as a result of which Milutin was awarded a special red sash by the archbishop, the minister was promoted to a congregation of forty homes in the pastoral farming village of Smiljan,16 situated only six miles from Gospić. Milutin was returning home, where his father still lived. In 1855, the young minister, his pregnant wife, and his three children packed their oxcart and made the fifty-mile journey over the Velebit ridge through the Lika valley to their new dwelling.
In 1856, Nikola Tesla was born. He was followed three years later by Marica, mother-to-be of Sava Kasonovic, the first Yugoslavian ambassador to the United States, and the man most responsible for creating the Tesla Museum in Belgrade.
Smiljan was an ideal setting for the young boys to grow up in. Nikola, raised in large measure by his two older sisters, appears to have led an Arcadian childhood, annoying the servants, playing with the local birds and animals on the farm, and learning inventions from his older brother and mother.
Down to the local creek the boys would go to swim or catch frogs in the spring or summer and to build dams in the autumn and early winter in vain attempts to stop the seasonal flooding of the land.17 One of their favorite recreations was a smooth waterwheel, a device which contained inherent concepts that would later form the basis of Tesla’s innovative bladeless steam turbines.
Other inventions included a cornstalk popgun, which contained principles that Tesla later adapted when he fashioned particle-beam weapons, a special fishing hook for catching frogs, snares for capturing birds, and a parasol used in an unsuccessful attempt to glide off the roof of the barn. Young Niko must have taken quite a leap, because his fall laid him up for six weeks.18
Perhaps the boy’s most ingenious creation was a propeller driven by sixteen May bugs glued or sewn four abreast onto the wooden blades. “These creatures were remarkably efficient, for once they were started they had no sense to stop and continued whirling for hours and hours…All went well until a strange boy came to the place. He was the son of a retired officer in the Austrian Army. That urchin ate May-bugs alive and enjoyed them as tho [sic] they were the finest blue-point oysters. That disgusting sight terminated my endeavors in this promising field and I have never since been able to touch a May-bug or any other insect for that matter.”19
Some of the inventor’s earliest memories, when he was three, were recalled when he was an octogenarian. Many years before pigeons, Tesla showered his affections on the family cat, Mačak, “the fountain of my enjoyment…I wish that I could give you an adequate idea of the depth of affection which existed between me and him.”
After dinner, Niko and his cat would rush out of the house and frolic by the church. Mačak would “grab me by the trousers. He tried hard to make me believe he would bite, but the instant his needle sharp incisors penetrated the clothing, the pressure ceased and their contact with my skin was as gentle and tender as that of a butterfly alighting on a petal.”
Tesla liked best to wallow in the grass with Mačak. “We [would] just roll…and roll…in a delirium of delight.”
In this peaceful setting, young Niko was introduced to the barnyard animals. “I would…take one or the other under my arm and hug and pet it,” he wrote, “[especially] the grand resplendent cock who liked me.”20 It was also at this time that the boy began to study flight, a topic of interest that caused him in later life to invent a variety of novel flying machines. His relationship with birds, however, was filled with contradictions.
My childhood…would have passed blissfully if I did not have a powerful enemy,…our gander, a monstrous ugly brute, with a neck of an ostrich, mouth of crocodile and a pair of cunning eyes radiating intelligence and understanding like the human…
One summer day my mother had given me a bath and put me out for a sun warming in Adam’s attire. When she stepped in the house, the gander espied me and charged. The brute knew where it would hurt most and seized me by the nape almost pulling out the remnant of my umbilical cord. My mother, who came in time to prevent further injury, said to me: “You must know that you cannot make peace with a gander or a cock whom you have taunted. They will fight you as long as they live.”21
Tesla had run-ins with other animals as well, such as a local wolf, who fortunately turned and ran from him; the family cow, which Tesla rode and one time fell off of; and the giant ravens, whom he claimed to have snared with his bare hands by hiding under the bushes and leaping out at them, as a cat would.
Tesla also liked to tell the story of his two homely aunts, who often visited his home. One, an Aunt Veva, “had two protruding teeth like the tusks of an elephant. She loved
me passionately and buried them deep in my cheek in kissing me. I cried out from pain but she thought it was from pleasure and dug them in still deeper. Nevertheless,” Tesla recalled, “I preferred her to the other…[as] she used to glue her lips to mine and suck and suck until by frantic efforts I managed to free myself gasping for breath.”
One day when they came over and Tesla was still small enough to be held in the arms of his mother, “they asked me who was the prettier of the two. After examining their faces intently, I answered thoughtfully, pointing to one of them, ‘This here is not as ugly as the other.’”22
Tesla inherited his sense of humor from his father, who, for instance, once cautioned a cross-eyed employee who was chopping wood near the minister and his son, “For God’s sake…do not strike at what you are looking at but what you expect to hit.”
Father Tesla was known to talk to himself and even carry on conversations with different tones in his voice, a trait also noted in the inventor, especially in his later years.23 Milutin also trained his sons in exercises in developing memory and their intuitive faculties. Able to recite at length works in several languages, he often remarked playfully that if some of the classics were lost he could restore them. “My father…spoke fluently a great many languages and also ranked high as a mathematician. He was an omnivorous reader and possessed a large library from which it was my privilege to gather a great deal of information during my years of life spent at home.”24
Texts from this library included works in German by Goethe and Schiller, encyclopedic works in French by D’Alembert, and other classics, probably in English, from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.25
The inventor’s colorful autobiography remains the primary source of information on his childhood. Although Dane and his parents appear prominently in the work, Tesla’s sisters are barely mentioned. Certainly he loved the girls—he exchanged letters with them regularly for the duration of his life—but they seemed not to have overtly influenced his upbringing. It was his mother whose untiring work habits and proclivity toward invention influenced the inventor-to-be.
Whereas Milutin ran the parish and published his articles, Djouka directed the servants and ran the farm. She had the responsibility of growing the crops, sewing all the clothes, and designing needlework, a practice that made her famous in the region. Tesla also ascribes his proclivity to invention to his mother; she conceived of many household appliances, including churns, looms, and “all kinds of [kitchen] tools. [My mother] descended from a long line of inventors.” Starting before dawn, she did not quit work until eleven o’clock at night.26
In 1863 disaster struck the Tesla household.27 Dane, who “was gifted to an extraordinary degree,” was out riding the family horse, which was “of Arabian breed, possest [sic] of almost human intelligence.” The horse may have been the type easily spooked. The previous winter, it had thrown Milutin in the middle of the forest after an encounter with wolves and had run home, leaving him unconscious. The horse, however, was smart enough to bring the search party back to the scene of the accident, and thus the father was saved. This animal, which “was cared for and petted by the whole family,” threw the brother as well, but Dane died of the injuries. The family never really recovered. “[Dane’s] premature death left my parents disconsolate…The recollection of his attainments made every effort of mine seem dull in comparison. Anything I did that was creditable merely caused my parents to feel their loss more keenly. So I grew up with little confidence in myself.”28
Upset by his brother’s death and the rejection by his parents, particularly his mother, the seven-year-old ran away from home and hid in an “inaccessible” mountain chapel which “was visited only once a year.” By the time he had reached the place, it was nightfall. There was little the boy could do but force his way in and spend the night “entombed…It was an awful experience.”29
Shortly after this tragedy, Milutin was promoted and given the parish at the ornate “onion bulb church” in the town of Gospić.30 The family moved the few miles to Gospić, where father Tesla also took a post teaching religion at the local gymnasium (high school).31 Niko was of school age, so he began his formal education at this time. However, he had great difficulty adjusting to city life, for he missed the farm and the idyllic existence he had once enjoyed. “This change of residence was like a calamity to me. It almost broke my heart to part from our pigeons, chickens and sheep, and our magnificent flock of geese which used to rise to the clouds in the morning and return from the feeding grounds at sundown in battle formation, so perfect that it would have put a squadron of the best aviators of the present day to shame.”32
The boy would wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares of Dane’s death, which he claimed to have witnessed, and of the funeral, which probably involved an open casket. “A vivid picture of the scene would thrust itself before my eyes and persist despite all efforts to banish it…To free myself of these tormenting appearances, I tried to concentrate my mind on something else…[by] continuously [conjuring up] new images…I was opprest [sic] by thoughts of pain in life and death and religious fear…swayed by superstitious beliefs and lived in constant dread of the spirit of evil, of ghosts and ogres and other unholy monsters of the dark.”33
It was at this time that Tesla began to have what today are known as out-of-body experiences, although he never ascribed anything mystical or paranormal to them. “Blurred [at first]…I would [see]…on my journeys…new places, cities and countries—live there, meet people and make friendships…and, however unbelievable, it is a fact that they were just as dear to me as those in actual life and not a bit less intense in their manifestations.”34
Tesla stated he had such great powers of eidetic imagery that he sometimes needed one of his sisters to help him tell which was hallucination and which was not. Like Dane, his thoughts were often interrupted with annoying flashes of light. These psychoneurological disturbances continued throughout his life. On the positive side, the problem was also attributed to his inventive bent. He could use his powers of visualization to mold his various creations, and even run and modify them in his mind, before committing them to paper and the material world.
While still in grade school, Niko had obtained a post at the local library in Gospić classifying the various books. But he was forbidden to read at night for fear that his eyes would be strained in dim light, and Milutin “would fly into a rage” to stop him.35 Undeterred, Niko would swipe some household candles, seal up the cracks in his room, and continue reading through the night. The book that Tesla claimed changed his life was Abafi, a story, translated into Serbian, about the son of Aba, by the Hungarian author Josika. “Up to the age of eight, my character was weak and vacillating…This work somehow awakened my dormant powers of will and I began to practice self-control. At first my resolutions faded like snow in April, but in a little while I conquered my weakness and felt a pleasure I never knew before—that of doing as I willed.”36
Thus, by the age of twelve he was successfully experimenting with acts of self-denial and self-mastery, a paradoxical pattern which played itself out repeatedly throughout his life. Simultaneously, Tesla began to develop peculiarities, probably stemming from the stress associated with his brother’s death, strained relationship with his parents, and denial of his sexual desires.37 At this time he became ill and claimed that a heavy dose of Mark Twain’s writings turned his spirit and cured him. “Twenty-five years later, when I met Mr. Clemens and we formed a friendship…I told him of the experience and was amazed to see that a great man of laughter burst into tears.38 During this period I contracted many strange…habits…I had a violent aversion against the earrings of women but other ornaments, as bracelets, pleased me…The sight of a pearl would almost give me a fit but I was fascinated with the glitter of…objects with sharp edges…I would not touch the hair of other people except, perhaps, at the point of a revolver. I would get a fever by looking at a peach…Even now [at age sixty-one] I am not insensible [sic] to
some of these upsetting impulses.”39
The youngster, however, also undertook normal boyhood adventures, including a few near-death experiences: on one occasion “by falling headlong into a huge kettle of boiling milk, just drawn from the paternal herds”;40 on another occasion nearly drowning after swimming under a raft; and on a third occasion by nearly being swept over a waterfall at one of the nearby dams. These were rather unpleasant experiences, but not as bad, according to the inventor, as the following: “There was a wealthy lady in town who used to come to the church gorgeously painted up and attired with an enormous train and attendants. One Sunday I had just finished ringing the bell in the belfry and rushed downstairs when this grand dame was sweeping out and I jumped on her train [and] tore it. Livid, my father gave me a gentle slap on the cheek, the only corporal punishment he ever administered to me but I almost feel it now.”41
Niko became ostracized and avoided social interaction. Fortunately, he was able to redeem himself through his inventive mind. One day, the local firemen brought out their new engine and started a fire to demonstrate it. To the embarrassment of the officials, the hose, which drew its water from the local river, would not work. Intuitively, Tesla realized that there was a kink in the rigging. Tearing off his Sunday best, he dived into the water, unscrambled the line, and became the hero of the day. This event became a strong inducement for the boy to continue his interest in invention. Simultaneously, this act symbolized a new way to obtain love and admiration not only from his parents but also from society.
Between the ages ten and fourteen, Niko attended the Real Gymnasium, equivalent to junior high school. (It appears that both his father and uncle taught there.) It was a fairly new institution, with a wellequipped physics department. “I was interested in electricity almost from the beginning of my educational career,” he wrote. “I read all that I could find on the subject…[and] experimented with batteries and induction coils.”42
