Schooling of Nikola Tesla in Croatia and his teacher Martin Sekuliae

Tesla’s autobiography entitled My Inventions was published as a series of six articles in Electrical Experimenter (popular-scientific monthly) during 1919, in the time when the journal was printed in one hundred thosand copies. Its editor in chief was Hugo Gernsback, also an inventor and considered as “The Father of Science Fiction” in the modern sense.

Tesla was very fluent in English. His sentences are brilliantly polished, with occasional usage of expressions in Latin, German and French.

Tesla’s personality is marked among others by deep idealism and humanism, knowledge of literature, fluency in several world languages (German, French and English), as well as by deep knowledge and understanding of diverse aspects of Electrical Engineering.

Let us quote Tesla’s description of his arrival to the Lower Real Gymnasium (in fact, to the Lower Real School) in Gospiae, Croatia, at the age of ten:

At the age of ten I entered the Real Gymnasium [Gospiae] which was a new and fairly well equipt institution. In the department of physics were various models of classical scientific apparatus, electrical and mechanical. The demonstrations and experiments performed from time to time by the instructors fascinated me and were undoubtedly a powerful incentive to invention. I was also passionately fond of mathematical studies and often won the professor’s praise for rapid calculations.
Electrical Experimenter
April 1919, p. 863, left column, line 1

These Tesla’s sentences should incite us to study his education in the Lower Real School in Gospiae, in the period of his schooling there from 1862 till 1870: finding out the names of his teachers, the content of various school subjects, etc.

Tesla attended the Lower Real School in Gospiae during three years. The lectures were taught in Croatian language for all subjects, while German was taught as a separate subject. See [Strohal, p. 89].

Zagreb – Karlovac: 53 km Gospiae – Smiljan: 5 km

Karlovac – Gospiae: 152 km

Austro-Hungria, 1872, Ferreira da Costa, Portugal (a map of Austria-Hungary kept in the National and University Library in Zagreb, Croatia)

Schooling of Nikola Tesla in Rakovac 1870-1873

Tesla’s arrival to the city of Karlovac, more precisely, to Rakovac (today a part of Karlovac), to the Higher Real School, is described in Electrical Experimenter, April 1919, on p. 865, in line 3 of the left column.

At that time, Karlovac was an advanced city, with agile cultural and economic life. For example, already in 1858 it had a singing society Zora (i.e., Dawn, the oldest Croatian singing association). In 1867 it had as many as 60 singers. A more detailed information can be found in the monograph [Strohal]. In Strohal’s monograph (p. 104), it is stressed that the working language of the Higher Real School in Rakovac was German, except for the separate school subject called “Croatian Language”. Starting with the automn 1870, the subjects “History” and “Religion” were also taught in Croatian. Since 1874, all the school subjects had to be taught in Croatian language, but the lack of Croatian native speaking personnel made it impossible. Therefore, in the automn of 1878, it was decided that a half of the school subjects (Religion, Croatian language, History, and Geography) should be lectured in Croatian, while the rest (i.e., the so called “real school subjects”) should be taught in German. It was only in 1883, when the whole of the Military frontier (Vojna krajina) was adjoined to Croatia, that all the school subjects were taught in Croatian language.
Until 1883 (i.e., until the ‘unification of Military Frontier with the motherland’), the Imperial and Royal Real School in Rakovac was under the military command of Croatia’s capital Zagreb. After 1883, the school was under the direct control of the Royal Land Government in Zagreb. See [Strohal, p. 104].

In the text below, on the left-hand side to the photo of the induction motor, there comes the most interesting part for us. Nikola Tesla mentions Martin Sekuliae in four sentences, although he does not explicitly mention his name (similarly as in the case of his mother Georgina or Duka elsewhere in the book).

Here is Tesla’s description of Martin Sekuliae, his professor of Physics at the Higher Real School in Rakovac:

I had become intensely interested in electricity under the stimulating influence of my Professor of Physics, who was an ingenious man and often demonstrated the principles by apparatus of his own invention. Among these I recall a device in the shape of a freely rotatable bulb, with tinfoil coatings, which was made to spin rapidly when connected to a static machine. It is impossible for me to convey an adequate idea of the intensity of feeling I experienced in witnessing his exhibitions of these mysterious phenomena. Every impression produced a thousand echoes in my mind. I wanted to know more of this wonderful force; I longed for experiment and investigation and resigned myself to the inevitable with aching heart.
Electrical Experimenter
April 1919, p. 865, left column, on the left of the photo

The name of Martin Sekuliae has been almost entirely left out in the contemporary literature about Nikola Tesla, and there is hardly any book in which his name is at least mentioned. This represents a grave injustice to Nikola Tesla.

In 1882, the citizens of Karlovac decided to extend the building of the Higher Real School in Rakovac, mostly for the sake of economy, in order to unite the school with the then Gymnasium in the city of Karlovac. Hence, the so called Royal Great Gymnasium in Karlovac was founded, placed in the building of the former Higher Real School in Rakovac. This has been done in 1882/83. See [Strohal, pp. 104-105]. The Higher Real School in Rakovac (intended for military profession) was cancelled as an institution, because the Military Frontier was returned under the complete sovreign administrative rule of Croatia.

Martin Sekuliae (1833-1905), Tesla’s teacher

In the period of 1870-1873 (i.e., in the course of three school years: 1870/71, 71/72, and 72/73) Tesla was educated in the town of Rakovac from his 14th to 17th years. Rakovac is today a part of the city of Karlovac.

Martin Sekuliae directed a physical laboratory in the Higher Real School in Rakovac, which was equipped with of as many as 579 instruments!
(see Statistika nastave u kraljevini Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji i hrvatsko-slavonskoj Vojnoj krajini 1kolske godine 1871-72., Zagreb 1873.)

Among his basic school subjects in Rakovac, Tesla had Croatian Language (Kroatische Sprache) as his mother tongue.

As we can see on the photo of Martin Sekuliae and his colleagues in the Rakovac Higher Real School (kept in the Croatian School Museum in Zagreb), the professors wore nice uniforms. The students also wore the uniforms, but we do not knoow how they looked like.

The Higher Real School served to educate students for military profession in Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier (Hrvatsko-slavonska vojna krajina). The occupied parts of Croatian territories (roughly, western part of today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina between rivers Una and Vrbas) became known as Turkish Croatia. Indeed, on various maps from that time (18th-19th centuries), we encounter the names od TA 1/4 rkisch Kroatien (in German), Croatie Turc (in French), Croazia Turca (in Italian).

As Nikola Tesla, Martin Sekuliae (1833-1905) was also born in the Croatian region of Lika, in the town of Lovinac. Martin Sekuliae has noble roots: he is descendent of the city of Senj nobility. On his grave in the Mirogoj Cemetery we can read MARTIN SEKULLIAE, carved with the double L.

The Military Frontier (Vojna granica) is oficially called Croatian Military Frontier or Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier (Hrvatsko-slavonska vojna krajina).

Some of the disciplinary regulations during Tesla’s education in Croatia were:

11. Kada ueitelj stupi u 1kolsku sobu, podignuti aee se svi ueenici sa svojih mjesta… (When a teacher enters a class, all students will raise)
12. Nauk se molitvom i zapoeima i dovr1uje (Each lesson starts and ends with prayer)
22. Poslie svake dvie ure polda1njega nauka daje se ueenikom odmor deset easaka (minuta)… (After every two hours of daily teaching, students are given 10 minutes of rest)

In 1873, Tesla completed his secondary schooling with matriculating in front of the committee consisting of eleven (sic!) professors. Due to the existence of such a serious exam, he did not have to enter the admission exams in any of the high technical schools in Austro-Hungarian Empire. Thus, he enrolled directly at the prestigious High Technical School in Graz, Austria. Most probably there Tesla met Antun Lueiae – Anthnoy F. Lucas, the future Father of Petroleum Engineering (Tesla’s compatriat, born in 1855 in the city Splitu, one year before Nikola Tesla).

What Nikola Tesla represents for Electrical Engineering in general, Antun Lueiae (Anthony F. Lucas) represents for Petroleum Engineering. Every year, since 1936 till these days, the American Geological Society awards the prestigious Lucas Medal.

It is little known that the last Turkish Osmanly (Ottoman) attack on the city of Karlovac, attempting its occupation, took place in 1878, i.e., only five years after Tesla’s completion of his schooling in Rakovac. (this information is given by the courtesy of Antun Milinkoviae, professor at the Gymnasium of Karlovac, actually working in the same building in which Nikola Tesla attended the then Higher Real School.

Martin Sekuliae – corresponding member of JAZU (today HAZU – Croatian Academy) in Zagreb

In 1873, at the age of 40, Martin Sekuliae became a corresponding member of the Academy in Zagreb, at the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. In that year, Tesla was completing his schooling in Rakovac, where Martin Sekuliae was his professor.

Martin Sekuliae has 13 published papers (three of them in prestigious Annalen der Physik, one in Wiener Any. Jahrg, and nine papers in Rad JAZU, a journal of the Academy which exists also today); see [Vukoviae and Valent].

Let us list the titles of some of the papers of Martin Sekuliae (the source of information is mainly the German Wikipedia and [Muljeviae]):

• Beziehungen zwischen der elektromotorischen Kraft und der chemischen WA¤rmetA?nung
• Ultraviolette Strahlen sind unmittelbar sichtbar; In Chemisches Central-Blatt, Band 43, 1872
• Eine merkwA 1/4 rdige Interferenzerscheinung; Pogg. Ann. (tj. Poggendorffs Annalen), CXLIX, 126. 1873
• Fizika atoma i molekula (Physics of the atoms and molecules), Rad JAZU,A,A,A,  Knj. 26(1874) str. 109-152.
• Ueber die an bestA¤ubten und unreinen Spiegeln sichtbare Interferenzerscheinung; In: Annalen der Physik; Volume 230, Issue 2, S. 308AcEUR”316, 1875, doi:10.1002/andp.18752300212.
• Uzrok munjotorskoj sili (The source of electrical force), Rad JAZU, br. 41 (1877), br. 50 (1879), br. 58 (1881)
• O ledenoj dobi sjeverne polutke na1e zemlje (On the Ice Age in the northern hemisphere), JAZU 64 (1882)

During Tesla’s schooling in Rakovac, Sekuliae has published his articles Fluorescencije i calcescencija (Fluorescency and calcescency, 1871), Polarna zora kao ueinak zemaljske munjine (Polar dawn as a result of electricity of the Earth, 1872.), Istra 3/4 ivnje suneeve duge (Research of the rainbow of the Sun, 1873), all in Rad JAZU in Zagreb. More extensive information about the biography and bibliography of Martin Sekuliae is available in the work [Vukoviae and Valent].
Young Nikola Tesla had the opportunity to witness among others Sekuliae’s experiments with artificial polar light. On one occasion, Martin Sekuliae informed the Academy in Zagreb that he managed to directly detect ultraviolet rays, about which he published one paper (the above mentioned “Eine merkwA 1/4 rdige Interferenzerscheinung”; Pogg. Ann., 1873.). After that, Sekuliae was contacted by Mr. Lettson from the “Royal Institution of Great Britain”, asking him for additional information about his experiments. See [Muljeviae, p. 333].
All these insights were important to then young Nikola Tesla in his subsequent work in the USA dealing with fluorescent (and later neon) bulbs.

An article by Martin Sekuliae published in prestigious German scientific journal Annalen der Physik in 1875.
Here we can see a part of the first page (p. 308); the whole first page: [JPG].
Instead of Rakovac, in the title there a small mistake: Rokovac.
Below his name, it is stressed that he is a professor in Rakovac in Croatia,
and that the paper represents a translation from Croatian language.
The entire Sekuliae’s work is available (upon paying) at doi:10.1002/andp.18752300212.

Lissajous curves that Martin Sekuliae drew and described in his paper
Fizika atoma i molekula (The physics of the atoms and molecules), Rad JAZU Knj. 26(1874) p. 109-152.
Sekuliae constructed a special apparatus for drawing Lissajous curves. See [Muljeviae, str. 334].

Tesla became a corresponding member of the Academy (JAZU, now HAZU) in Zagreb in 1896, also at the age of 40 as Sekuliae. The Academy (JAZU) in Zagreb was founded in 1866. Martin Sekuliae became its member seven years after its founding, while Nikola Tesla was elected thirty years after its founding.

Sekuliae enthused Tesla for Bo1koviae, by popularizing Bo1koviae’s idea that the whole Physics can be founded on the unique type of force.

The prestigious journal Annalen der Physik was founded already in 1790 (in the time of the beginnings of Sekuliae’s scientific work, the complete name of the journal was Annalen der Physik und Chemie). Martin Sekuliae published his papers in this journal in 1872, 1873, and in 1875, in German language. This shows that young Nikola Tesla listened to the lectures of Martin Sekuliae at the time of his greatest scientific activities.

Since 1895, German Nobel Prize winner Max Planck served as an associated editor of Annalen der Physik, while from 1907 till 1943, he was its editor in chief.

We mention in passing that in 1942, at the age of 84, Max Plack delivered an invited lecture at the University of Zagreb. He was welcomed by the then rector Stjepan Iv1iae, distinguished Croatian linguist. The lecture was conducted in the stuffed lecture hall of the then Technical Faculty (of the University of Zagreb) in Kaeiaeeva street 26, entitled “The meaning and bounds of exact natural sciences.” No photo of Planck’s sojourn in Zagreb has been preserved. Even the Hotel Esplanade in Zagreb, where Planck stayed, has no preserved information about the sojourn of distinguished scientist (all the documents were destroyed after 1945, during the communist time in ex-Yugoslavia).

During his lecture in Zagreb, Planck spoke among others about the danger of the atomic bomb (which was for the first time unveiled for the broad public). See [Leo Randiae].

Other Tesla’s professors in Rakovac

One of the members of the matriculation exam committe for young Nikola Tesla at the Higher Real School in Rakovac was professor (R)ivko Vukasoviae (1829-1874), zoologist, entomologist and a full member of JAZU, the then Academy in Zagreb (besides this, he was one of two school surveillors for the whole of Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier – Vojna krajina). Born in the village of Beravci (south of Dakovo), he completed two very different studies in at the universities of Vienna and Graz: Law and Biology.
In 1873, Tesla matriculated in the group of seven students, examined by the committee consisting of eleven professors:

Dr. Petar Tomiae (1839.-1918.), born in Zabok in Hrvatsko Zagorje (region on the north of Zagreb), professor of History and Geography, was also a member of the matriculation committee. The next year (i.e., in 1874) he earned his PhD in Graz.

Nikola Tesla matriculated on July 24th, 1873. In his matriculation form (written in German; see the photo below) Tesla is mentioned as seventh in order, and his birth date is mistakenly written as Novemeber 2nd, 1856 (should be 9/10 July)

• ISPITANIKOVO IME (name of the examenee): Nikola Tesla
• VJERA (faith): greke nesjedinjene (Greek nonunited)
• RODNO MJESTO (birthplace):A,A,A, SmiljanA,A,A, u Vojnoj krajini (Smiljan in Military Frontier)
• DOMOVINA (homeland): Hrvatska (Croatia)
• STAROST (age): rodj. (born on) 2. novembra 1856. god. (should be July 9/10, 1856)
• ZANIMANJE RODITELJA (occupation of parents): Sin grekonesjedinjenog protojereja Milutina Tesle (son of Greek nonunited archpriest Milutin Tesla)
• STUDIJ GIMNAZIJE (study at gymnasium school): Ueio malu realku u Gospiaeu, a veliku realku svr1io u Karlovcu (attended Lower Real School in Gospiae, and Higher Real School in Karlovac)

(source Gymnasium in Karlovac)

Statistics of teaching from 1871. (i.e., from the year when young Nikola Tesla was a student at the Rakovac Higher Real School, at the age of 15) inform us that

the Physics cabinet in the Rakovac Higher Real School possesses as many as 579 (five hundred and seventy nine) instruments! This cabinet, as we have already mentioned, was directed by professor Martin Sekuliae. (The source of this important information is: Statistika nastave u kraljevini Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji i hrvatsko-slavonskoj Vojnoj krajini 1kolske godine 1871-72., Zagreb 1873. / Statistics of Teaching in the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia and in Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier in the School Year 1871-1872)

All this shows us that young Nikola Tesla had excellent professors, and that his school in Rakovac was enviably equipped with teaching tools, especially in the field of Physics (including Electrical Engineering).

Nikola Tesla and Croatian language

In 1868, a decision was taken that the Croatian language should be equal to German in all gymnasiums and real schools on the territory of Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier. It was not possible to carry out this decision in the Lower Real School in Gospiae (where Tesla completed his first three years of education), “because only two teachers know Croatian langague” (namely, in the aforementioned school the majority of teachers were foreigners, who were lecturing in German). The Gospiae Lower Real School added the fourth grade only in 1872. See [Pete1iae, p. 28]. For the same reason, it was only in 1874 that the Higher Real School in Rakovac passed to the teaching in Croatian language. Until then, there was a special subject called Kroatische Sprache (Croatian Language), which was listened to by young Nikola Tesla.

In 1871 (when Tesla was at the age of 15), the Higher Real School in Rakovac added the seventh grade, by interpolating an additional grade between three lower and three higher grades. For this reason, Nikola Tesla skipped the fifth grade, and jumped from the fourth grade immediately to the sixth grade.

All the school subjects apearing in the Yearbook of the Imperial and Royal Higher Real School in Rakovac (Godi1nje izvje1aee Carske i kraljevske velike realke u Rakovcu) for the period of 1872-1874, are described not only in German, but also in Croatian language.
Let us see the content of the subject Croatian Language in Tesla’s school in Rakovac (three hours weekly):

Let us see the school subject called prirodoslovje (i.e., Physics; four school hours weekly):

Let us also see mathematika, i.e., Mathematics (five school hours weekly):

In time when Nikola Tesla was a secondary school student at the Higher Real School in Rakovac (at the age of 14-17), there was an elective school subject called pjevanje (gesang), i.e. Singing:

The above information about singing can be found in the Yearbook (Godi1nje izvje1aee) published in Zagreb (Agram) in 1871/1872.

Tesla’s diplomas and documents from Rakovac

Tesla’s mother tongue during his schooling was Croatian:

In the fourth grade of the Higher Real School in Rakovac, Tesla had an excellent mark in Croatian Language; [Jadriae, Mihaljeviae].
The reason for his lower marks at the matricualtion exam could be his interest in chess. Namely, in 1873, he became the chess champion among secondary school students in the city of Karlovac. Information about this is provided by Zdravko (C)vegar in his book Izidor Gross i 1ah u Karlovcu (Isidor Gross and Chess in Karlovac), 1999., by citing Teslin 3/4 ivotopis (Tesla’s Autobiography) written by Slavko Bok1an (see the following source: Nikola Tesla i 1ah, i.e., Nikola Tesla and chess). In his autobiography, Tesla does not say anything about this success, since he probably did not attach a great importance to it.

Passport issued to Nikola Tesla in Croatia’s capital Zagreb in 1883

In 1883, the presidency of the royal Croatian-Slavonian-Dalmatian land government in Zagreb, issued Tesla’s passport to the regional office in Gospiae “for abroad – France, Russia and Germany, for three years”; see [Pete1iae, p. 47].

The library of the Gymnasium in the city of Karlovac possesses documents on issuing Tesla’s documents in the time when he was already in the USA. More precisely, Tesla’s uncle, the Gospiae archpriest Petar Mandiae, submitted a request to the Royal Land Governement (of the Three-Une Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia), to the Department of Religios matters and Education, in order to “issue a matriculation form for Nikola Tesla to me”. The uncle wrote that Tesla “has left for New York in America, in order to be trained in telephone profession, and for this he needs his matriculation form for studies completed here.” The request was resolved in the positive on July 1st, 1885 (no. 4576). See [Pete1iae, p. 54].

AEiril Pete1iae considers it to be unclear how was it possible that Tesla could travel without any passport from Budapest to France and Germany in 1882. Also, it is not known how Tesla obtained permission to travel to the USA in 1884, since this destination was not predicted in his passport issued in Zagreb in 1883. See [Pete1iae, p. 47].

Humanism in the time of Tesla’s schooling in Rakovac

At the Higher Real School attended by Nikola Tesla, there was the Socity for Supporting Poor Students (Dru 3/4 tvo za podporu siroma1nih ueenika), founded already in 1860.

Ivan Me1troviae, distinguished Croatian sculptor, wrote the following about Tesla’s idealism:

His ideal and all of his efforts were directed towards the advancement of Mankind. After that, he turned to mysticism and recounted to me, that he was since his youth praying to God before going to sleep, kneeling on bare knees. When I asked him, which prayers does he pray, he answered to me:
– Those, that I prayed since my childhood. But, yes, I prayed so until my fifties. Since then, I pray differently, but the essence is the same, and I pray to God every day.
Ivan Me1troviae: Uspomene na politieke ljude i dogadjaje (Reminiscences of Political People and Events), Buenos Aires, 1961., Knji 3/4 nica Hrvatske revije. (pp. 191-193)

Since 1895, Nikola Tesla seems to have been under the spiritual influence of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) from India.

Lecture of Nikola Tesla in the City Hall in Zagreb in 1892

How does the interior of the City Hall on the Upper Town in Zagreb look like, where Nikola Tesla delivered his invited lecture? Croatian Coats of Arms can be seen on the walls and on the ceiling:

An article describing Tesla’s lecture in the City Hall in Zagreb, in the time of mayor Milan Amru1, published in “Narodne novine” (Peoples News) on May 25th, 1892. It is not excluded that Tesla’s teacher Martin Sekuliae was also among the listeners.

Nikola Tesla electric lighting in Zagreb

A famous electrical engineering expert, our compatriot Nikola Tesla, who at the invitation of the mayor dr. Amru1 arrived to the city of Zagreb, in order to support the city officials in matters dealing with introducing electrical lighting, expounded his views in presence of the city mayor and vicemayor, city councellers Mallin and Hudowski, and the city surveyor Lenuci, dealing with essential questions of the enterprise. Mr. Tesla, a man at the age of about 35, tall, slim as a fir of his homeland, of black hair and eyes, who on his broad forhead bears a mark of a genius, had a longer exposA(C), from which we draw the following more important information.

…

He will, on the other hand, examine the offers which will arrive to the city authorities, and will provide his opinion about them, so that any possible misuse could be prevented. And in general, he considers his duty to help the administration of the city in any respect with his advice and action, as a native son of this land, and asks the city to contact him in any occasion in which technical difficulties might arrive, and he will provide his advice without any recompensation, the best he could. –
With this, he ended his interesting analysis. The city mayor, Dr. Amru1, expressed the hartiest gratitude for his efforts and for his promise, wishing him the best success in his future work, which was flattering in front of the world not only for him, but also for his homeland. In the discussion that followed, Mr. Tesla mentioned that now he works on the realization of the hypothesis, which he thinks is realisable and of profound importance, namely the wireless transfer of electic current by means of the natural electricity of the Earth. We wish success to our compatriot from the bottom of our heart in his endevours. …

Electric plant (Munjara) of the city of Karlovac in 1908 in Ozalj

munjara = electric plant (derived from munja – lightning)

In 1908, a hydroplant, i.e., munjara, was built on the basis of the alternating current technology of Nikola Tesla. The building was designed by Hermann Bolle (1845-1925), better known as the designer of the Zagreb Cathedral, the Mirogoj Cemetery, etc. The first hydroplant in Croatia was built in the city of (C)ibenik already in 1895, as one of the oldest such electric plants in the world.

The city of Gospiae had its first electric plant in 1925 (see HEP). Tesla’s birthplace, the village of Smiljan, obtained AC current as late as 1956, i.e., 100 years after his birth.

The city of Zagreb built its first Munjara (electric plant) in 1907, in the region Tre1njevka, very near Panorama Hotel (on the south of it). The street where Munjara was built is even today called Munjarski put (Electric plant lane).

On August 26th, 1895, the first hydroelectric plant was launched on the Niagara Falls. Only two days later, the first Croatian hydroelectric AC plant plant was launched on the Krka Falls (Krka National Park in Croatia), which on August 28th, 1895 lighted the city of (C)ibenik. After that, the AC current was introduced in the cities of Rijeka (1890), Eakovec (1893), Zadar (1894), Vara 3/4 din (1895), Dubrovnik (1901), Pula (1904), Pakrac and Sisak (1905), and Zagreb (1907). The source of these data is the monograph Stoljeaee svjetla u Zagrebu, 1907 – 2007 (Century of Light in Zagreb, 1907 – 2007), published by Hrvatska elektroprivreda (Croatian Electric Power Industry; Durda Su1ec, ed.).

Personal acquaintances of Nikola Tesla

Some of the personal friends of Nikola Tesla (there are no known joint photos with Tesla, except for Fritzie Zivic, Croatian-American boxer):

• Milka Trnina (or Ternina, 1863-1941), soprano singer, the greatest Croatian opera singer in history, born in the region of Moslavina near Croatia’s capital Zagreb; because of her, Tesla booked a loggia in Metropolitan Opera in New York, where Ternina had as many as 79 appearances; she sang at one of his birthday parties;
• Ivan Me1troviae (1883-1962), distinguished Croatian sculptor;
• Zlatko Balokoviae (1895-1965), distinguished Croatian violinist, played at Tesla’s funeral in 1943;
• Marijan Matijeviae (1878-1951, financially supported Tesla in the 1920s), in his time the strongest man in the world. His help to Tesla is mentioned by George Juraj Prpiae in his monograph Croatians in America (there is a Croatian translation – Hrvati u Americi), of the Lika descent, born in Banat, university professor in the USA (John Carrol University, Department of History, Cleveland);
• Ivan (John) Benkoviae (1886-1918), was born in the village of Reeica near the city of Karlovac, and studied painting at the Academy of Arts in Zagreb. He arrived to the USA in 1912, working as commercial artist in New York, under the pseudnim Bankow. He made a live portrait of Nikola Tesla in 1913 (one of only two Tesla’s live portraits). With his recommendation letter, Tesla helped him to get employment in respectable Catholic journal entitled Extension Magazine, as well as in Hrvatski Svijet (Croatian World). He died prematurely out of the Spanish flew. See [Vladimir Novak, Croatians in America, p. 73]. The mentioned Tesla’s portrait, drawn by Ivan Benkoviae, is kept in the Museum of N. Tesla in Belgrade, while Tesla’s recommendation letter is in the City Museum in Samobor near Zagreb.
• Fritzie Zivic (1913.-1984.), American boxer of Croatian roots, welterweight world champion in 1940 and 1941. His father (R)iveiae was born in the Croatian town of Bosiljevo.

Distinguished Croatian artists Milka Ternina, Zlatko Balokoviae, and Ivan Me1troviae, are mentioned as Tesla’s friends in the book by AEiril Pete1iae (1923.-2012.): [Pete1iae, p. 70].

Here is the content of Tesla’s recommendation letter written for Ivan Benkoviae, kept in the Samobor Museum (Benkoviaeev’s wife Marija Anger was born in Samobor):

TESLA LABORATORY
LONG ISLAND, N. Y. 202 Metropolitan Tower
January 16, 1913
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
This will introduce Mr. John Benkovich,
a painter of excellent academic training who has already achieved
distinction in his profession. I take pleasure in recommending
him to any employer who is desirous of securing the services of
a skillful designer or draftsman, feeling certain that he will
acquit himself of the most difficult duties in his entire satis-
faction.
Nikola Tesla

July 4, 1917 – The Fall of Nikola TeslaAcEUR(TM)s Wardenclyffe Tower

This is the only known photo where Tesla smiles! This has been noticed by Mr. Mario Filipi, many thanks to him.
This very nice and amusing photo has been shot in 1941, just two years before Tesla’s death.

Pior to 1880, Tesla got acquainted with great Czech comsposers Smetana and Dvor 3/4 ak, that he was later meeting in Metropolitan Opera in New York; see [Pete1iae, p. 40].

Bust of Nikola Tesla within the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (of the University of Zagreb) and in the Technical Museum in Zagreb was carved in 1930s by Emil Bohutinsky, Croatian sculptor born in Kri 3/4 evci near Zagreb.

Ferdinand Kovaeeviae (Smiljan 1838-Zagreb 1913), patented duplex connection for telephone transmission. Kovaeeviae was born in the village of Smiljan, as well as Tesla.

According to Josip Moser (president of the Electrotechnical Society Zagreb), a prestigios Austrian society called Elektrotechnischer Verein, among its 181 founding members in 1886 in Vienna, as amny as 40 of them were from Croatia. We mention for example

• Ferdianand Kovaeeviae (inventor of the duplex connection; born in the village Smiljan, as Tesla)
• Martin Sekuliae (Tesla’s professor of Physics)
• Nikola Tesla
• Vinko Dvor 3/4 ak (bron in Bohemia, earned his PhD under the guidance of Ernst Mach at the Charles University in Prague; founder of the study of Physics at the University of Zagreb, Croatia)
• Oton Kueera (popularizer of science as well as of Tesla’s AC technology; born in Petrinja near Zagreb).

Fiorello LaGuardia, Nikola Tesla and Croatian language

Tesla’s Eulogy given by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1943, New York.
Fiorello LaGuardia was American consular agent in the city of Rijeka. According to personal information by Mr. Vladimir Novak, he liked to sing Croatian songs, and when he arrived to the USA, he was employed at the Ellis Island in New York, where he accepted immigrants from Croatian lands. See [Vladimir Novak, Croatians in America, p. 71]. He was the most successful mayor of New York in history (from 1934 to 1945). A New York airport is named LaGuardia Airport after him.

The city of Rijeka has a street named after Fiorello LaGuardia. On the Ellis Island in front of New York, there is the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. From the description of Fiorello H. LaGuardia (1882-1947) exhibited there, it is clear that he was fluent in Croatian language (see [Vladimir Novak, Croatians in America, p. 71].):

Fiorello H. LaGuardia, who would later become one of America’s foremost public servants, was an interpreter on Ellis Island from 1907 to 1910. Certified to speak three languages – Italian, German, and Croatian, LaGuardia received an annual salary of $1,200.

He was also fluent in Yiddish (source: Fiorello La Guardia: Ultimate American, and in particular this photo):

La Guardia utilized his knowledge of several languages, reportedly including Hebrew: Croatian, German, Italian, and Yiddish.

Fiorello LaGuardia himself wrote the following lines (source: Fiorello La Guardia: Ultimate American, especially this photo):

Mr. Chester did me a good turn by sending me to Croatia one summer for four months for the express purpose of studying Croatian.
Croatian was tough, with its seven cases, all of them used, and its many conjugations of verbs.
While I never pretended to be expert in this language, I did learn enough of it to pass a Civil Service examination later, which enabled me to get the job as interpreter at Ellis Island that helped me work my way through law school.

LaGuardia’s grandfather Abraham Isaac Coen was born in 1833 in the city of Split, as a member of the Jewish community in this city, which has existed there for centuries. See [Vladimir Novak, Croatians in America, p. 71].

Tesla’s predictions of Internet and mobile phone

Nikola Tesla in his autobiography My Inventions, published by Electrica Experimenter in 1919, in the fifth part of his series (entitled The Magnifying Transmitter), for the first time announces to the broad public his prediction of the advent of mobile phones, and even of the Internet:

This invention was one of a number comprised in my “World-System” of wireless transmission which I undertook to commercialize on my return to New York in 1900. As to the immediate purposes of my enterprise, they were clearly outlined in a technical statement of that period from which I quote:
“The ‘World-System’ has resulted from a combination of several original discoveries made by the inventor in the course of long continued research and experimentation. It makes possible not only the instantaneous and precise wireless transmission of any kind of signals, messages or characters, to all parts of the world, but also the inter-connection of the existing telegraph, telephone, and other signal stations without any change in their present equipment. By its means, for instance, a telephone subscriber here may call up and talk to any other subscriber on the Globe. An inexpensive receiver, not bigger than a watch, will enable him to listen anywhere, on land or sea, to a speech delivered or music played in some other place, however distant. These examples are cited merely to give an idea of the possibilities of this great scientific advance, which annihilates distance and makes that perfect natural conductor, the Earth, available for all the innumerable purposes which human ingenuity has found for a line-wire. One far-reaching result of this is that any device capable of being operated thru one or more wires (at a distance obviously restricted) can likewise be actuated, without artificial conductors and with the same facility and accuracy, at distances to which there are no limits other than those imposed by the physical dimensions of the Globe. Thus, not only will entirely new fields for commercial exploitation be opened up by this ideal method of transmission but the old ones vastly extended. …

Colliers journal of January 30th, 1926, published an interview of John B. Kennedy with Nikola Tesla, under the title When woman is a boss, in which Tesla predicts very explicitly the advent of what we call today Internet and mobile phones.

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.
We shall be able to witness and hear events – the inauguration of a President, the playing of a world series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battle – just as though we were present.

Let us not forget that Tesla announces his visionary prediction in the period of the deaf film, which lasts until the end of 1920s!

Acknowledgements: Gymnasium in Karlovac (in particular to Sanda Furjaniae and Antun Milinkoviae), Croatian School Museum in Zagreb, Vladimir Muljeviae, Vatroslav Lopa1iae, Nikola Piasevoli, Zvonko Beneiae, (R)eljko Hanj1, Marijan O 3/4 aniae, (R)eljko Krnjak, Dina (C)imuniae, Milica Kesler, Jasenka Ferber Bogdan.

Literature

• Nikola Tesla: My Inventions (on the left page, on the left of the photo of induction motor, there is a description of his ingenious profesor of Physics from Karlovac (Martin Sekuliae)
• Vladimir Muljeviae: Martin Sekuliae (1833-1905), Elektrotehnika br. 5, 1973, pp. 331-338.
• AEiril Pete1iae: Genij s na1eg kamenjara / (R)ivot i djelo Nikole Tesle (2. izdanje), (C)kolske novine, Zagreb, 1977. (the booklet had 7 editions, and the first one was printed in 10.000 copies; information by the courtesy of professor Ante Be 3/4 en)
• Leo Randiae (ed.): Pola stoljeaea od boravka nobelovca Maxa Plancka u Zagrebu (Half a century since a stay of Max Planck in Zagreb), Priroda 3-4-5 (1992.), pp. 8-9 (the article contains a contribution by Du1an Pejnoviae from 1942: Predavanje Maxa Plancka u Zagrebu 15. rujna 1942. (A lecture by Max Planck in Zagreb, delivered in 1942), from the daily press of NDH preserved by Tihomir (C)urina)
• Rudolf Strohal: Grad Karlovac opisan i orisan (The city of Karlovac described and Painted), Karlovac 1906. (Strohal was a director of Gymnasium in Karlovac, in the same building where there used to be situated the Higher Real School attended by Nikola Tesla during his secondary schooling from 1870-1873.)
• Antun Cuvaj: Grada za povijest 1kolstva kraljevina Hrvatske i Slavonije od najstarijih vremena do danas VI., Zagreb, 1911., rakovaeka Velika realka je opisana na str. 212-218.
• Natalija Jadriae i Tanja Mihaljeviae: Nikola Tesla – 1kolovanje u Karlovcu [PPT]
• Darko (R)ubriniae:
  • (C)kolovanje Nikole Tesle u Hrvatskoj i njegov profesor Martin Sekuliae [PDF] (sa 3/4 etak), u Povijest i filozofija tehnike / radovi EDZ sekcije 2017. godine / Beneiae, Zvonko ; Moser, Josip (ur.). Zagreb : Kiklos, 2017. Str. 81-117.
  • Nastava hrvatskog jezika, matematike i fizike tijekom 1kolovanja Nikole Tesle u Hrvatskoj [PDF], u Povijest i filozofija tehnike / radovi EDZ sekcije 2018 godine / Beneiae, Zvonko (ur.). Zagreb : Kiklos, 2018. Str. 293-317
  • Nikola Tesla 1856.-1943., istaknuti hrvatsko-amerieki znanstvenik

• Ivica Vukoviae i Anda Valent: Autori matematiekih rasprava u izvje1aeima rakovaeke realke [PDF], PRIRODOSLOVLJE 16(1-2) III (2016), str. 89-110 (osobito str. 104-110)
• Kraljevska vi1a realna 1kola u Rakovcu; vidi takoder FOND
• Vladimir Paar: Fiziear Nikola Tesla, 1. dio, 2. dio, 3. dio
• Vladimir Novak: Croatians in America, Zagreb – Croatia, 2018, ISBN 978-953-7616-06-09
• Du1an Pejnoviae: O 1kolovanju Nikole Tesle u Rakovcu (izvornik [JPG]), Matematieko-fizieki list, Zagreb, br. 3, 1956-57, str. 112
  Du1an Pejnoviae (1883-1958) was Croatian physicist, author of about 160 papers (information by Dr. Branko Han 3/4 ek) and a collaborator of Croatian Encyclopedia.