Summary
Summary In newspapers and magazines published in Serbian language, the name of Nikola Tesla was fi rst mentioned at the end of 1889. At that time he was 33 years old and a resident of America for already fi ve years. He was granted more than twenty patents and on May 16, 1888, he delivered a signifi cant and very remarkable lecture to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers at Columbia University in the City of New York. His previous work and creativity in the fi eld of induction motor, transmission and transformation of energy by using the polyphase system received numerous praises and recognition from the scientifi c public in the United States and Europe. By then, numerous professional and scientifi c articles were written about him and his achievements and published in the press in the United States, England, France, Italy, Germany. It is particularly interesting that the fi rst magazines that wrote about Nikola Tesla in Serbian language were published in Austria-Hungary. They were “Branik” and “Starmali” from Novi Sad and “Srpski glas” from Zadar. In accordance with the historical and political moment in which they were printed, in their articles these magazines emphasized, with pride and special respect, the fact that Tesla was a Serb by his origin. They compared him with the world’s greatest authority on electrotechnics at that time - Thomas Alva Edison, the American inventor whom Tesla, presumably, signifi cantly surpassed in ingenuity. In addition to the preserved archival documents, personal and technical objects, monographic and serial publications, in Tesla’s legacy there are more than two hundred letters he exchanged with his closest relatives. Several of the saved letters testify about the fi rst newspaper articles on Nikola Tesla and his work that appeared in journals published in Serbian language. Reviewing the historical events and scientifi c and technical results of the time, and discovering the less known details from Tesla’s life, the authors of this work presented the fi rst newspaper articles about the great scientist and inventor written in Serbian Cyrillic.

Keywords:
Nikola Tesla, inventor, scientist, Serbian press in 1889, “Branik”, “Starmali”, “Srpski glas”, Nikola Tesla Museum, Legacy of Nikola Tesla, Tesla’s correspondence with relatives, Nikoladin Kosanović

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