Controversial Author Claims Tesla for Montenegro

A book "Nikola Tesla declared himself as Montenegrin", published in Montenegro, has added fuel to the long-standing dispute over the national identity of the scientist Nikola Tesla, who lived and worked in the US. Born to a Serbian Orthodox family in Smiljan, Austria-Hungary, now Croatia, he died in New York in 1943.

The author, Miroslav Cosovic, told BIRN that American newspapers in the last decade of the 19th century referred to Tesla "at least 100 times" as Montenegrin. At that time, he added, it was rarely said that Tesla was a Serb and his name was almost always given as "Montenegrin".

"American journalists could not have come up with Tesla as Montenegrin if he himself did not say that. In the book, I publish 20 facsimiles from American newspapers ... referring to Tesla as the 'young Montenegrin' and as 'Montenegrin by birth,'" he said.

Who was Tesla

Tesla, generally considered an ethnic Serb, was born in Smiljan, Croatia, on July 10, 1856. After completing his education, he moved to New York in 1884, where he worked at a company owned by Thomas Edison, the inventor and businessman.

In 1891, he introduced to the world wireless energy transmission known as the Tesla Effect, as well as the Tesla Coil, an electrical resonant transformer circuit used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high-frequency alternating-current electricity.

Later, he experimented with X-rays, remote radio control and a steam-powered mechanical oscillator known as Tesla's oscillator. In all, Tesla held nearly 300 patents in 26 countries. He died in 1943.

In June 2016 a new dispute between Serbs and Croats erupted about Tesla's nationality after the Serbian Orthodox Church said it wanted to move his ashes from the...