Comment by redwood | Hacker News Reader

Comment by redwood | Hacker News Reader

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Little story:

So I walk into a bar in Belgrade, Serbia. Turns out to be a private party, lot's of drinking and merry-ment but my girl and I felt a bit out of place. Just before we turned for the door a man pulled me by the shoulder to the bar and started asking what we were doing there, real intimidating-like.

He said we could have drinks on him but I felt a little like we didn't want to be indebted to this guy. On the other hand I felt I had no choice.

He had asked me what I'd studied and I mentioned physics. He got the bar-tenders attention, got me a drink, and asked me "so... you say you know something about physics... tell me: 'what nationality was Nikola Tesla?'"

I responded "Croatian" of course. Suddenly the faces of the man, the bartender, and (so it seemed) the rest of the bar too went very gloomy, eyes piercing into me like shots of raiki (the liquor they drink).

I learned that night that the Serbs claim Tesla was a Serbian who lived in Croatia. The Croatians and Serbs (who hate each other very much) both claim him as their national heros.

Lessons:

- if you're in Serbia, Tesla was a Serbian (and a god)

- if you're in Croatia, Tesla was a Croatian (and a god)

- if you're anywhere else, well I guess now I know he wasn't god

1) I doubt either nation considers him a god.. just really proud of his accomplishments... although under a healthy influence of rakija I don't think a discussion with your "host" about pretty much anything would have been reasonable.

2) In Serbia you don't have to feel indebted when someone offers you a drink. I believe this is true for many "old-school" cultures. I realize it might seem intimidating or aggressive but don't fear. Just have a drink ;)

3) Nikola Tesla was Serbian. And yes he was born in Croatia (there are lots of us)... but I have a feeling your host would've been more offended had you replied "Who?". Either way you made it out of there in one piece didn't you?

Tesla's parents were both from a long lineage of Serbian Orthodox clergy. He was definitely Serbian, I doubt many Croatians claim him as their own, he just happens to be from a part of Croatia that was very Serbian prior to the last few years. My family on my mothers side is from the same pert of ex-Yugoslavia and large parts of the Serbian diaspora who emigrated are from parts of old Yugoslavia that are no longer in Serbia proper or the Serbian part of Bosnia.

The confusion came about for two reasons. 1. that Krajina became part of Croatia (that part of Yugoslavia) and 2. the old unifying Yugoslav government claimed Tesla as one of their own, and they did what they could to rid of ethnic divides so referred to everybody as 'Yugoslav' (or 'Yugoslav from Croatia' etc.).

This gets even uglier with the recent war where nationalists from all sides attempted to claim historic figures and celebrities as their own in an effort of ethnic superiority propaganda. (The funniest example of this was the President of Croatia leading an archeological dig in a part of Croatia where he discovered that the Croatian nation pre-dated the Roman empire - it got really messy). This really muddied the waters.

Most people in the region are pretty chilled out now, though - as a Serbian I have no problem with Croatians referring to Tesla as 'one of us', just as I often refer to Croatian football players as 'one of mine' (being from the Balkans). There is a lot more that unites us as a people than divides us.

My mother, fiercely proud of being Croatian (her parents immigrated to the U.S.), occasionally boasted that Tesla was "one of us"; she and my dad even named their dog Tesla in honor of him. I once told her Tesla was actually a Serb, the son of an Orthodox priest; she laughed and said with great conviction that I didn't know what I was talking about.

In some cultures naming your dog after someone is an insult to them, like they were your b.

- if you're in Croatia, Tesla was a Croatian (and a god)

Don't be so sure.

During the recent war they burned his memorial house and destroyed the monument in front of it. They also demolished his monument in the nearby town of Gospic at the beginning of the recent war and it appears they don't want it back: http://bit.ly/JnSQkg

"The recent war" (1991-1995), or Croatian War of Independence, was a mess and things like that happened. It doesn't mean anything.

In Croatian schools, they always say Tesla was Serbian and born in Croatian territory. Both Croatians and Serbs are proud of him, I guess.

As for mutual hatred, many people lost their families in the war, and obviously many Serbs were part of the aggression, so the relationship is no wonder.

Anyway, the article is great! Just what I needed.

As for mutual hatred, many people lost their families in the war, and obviously many Serbs were part of the aggression, so the relationship is no wonder.

The hatred dates well before the 1990ies. See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasenovac_concentration_camp. The more you know, the less you want to know.

The drink you are referring to is "Rakia", not "raiki". Just so you know :)

It's "Rakija" ;) but close enough

EDIT: OK correction, Wikipedia says it's also spelt rakia .. although I've never seen it written that way.

Rakija. It's spelt R-a-k-i-y-a. Wide-known drink of Slavic countries, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, etc. Derived from a Turkish word. Brandy made by distillation of fruit. The most known is Slivovitz (sliva- plum, Slavic origin), Plum brandy. See www.tastebrandy.com

Could be a Slovenian thing :) I pronounce it that way, but it could be entirely possible that it's spelled "Rakija" (wouldn't know, I'm not a big fan of the drink :)).

Could you add any contact info in your profile? :) There are not many people that know joys of rakija on this site :)

No people from Crete, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia? Really?

None that I had pleasure to drink with :)

Certainly.. its just my username @ gmail.com :) Although currently I perform my rakija consumption in Canada

probably a Serb/Croat "ije" thing.

Well, Tesla really was a Serbian - his father was in fact, a Serbian Orthodox priest, so the documentation on this is clear.

Of course, since he was born into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and studied in Graz, we might as well let the Austrians take credit, as the Austrians really need it (what's Austria's greatest accomplishment? convincing the world that Mozart is Austrian, and Hitler is German!)

But really, he did his best work as an American, so USA! USA! USA! :)

Seriously? Economics (von Mises? Morgenstern?), engineering (Ferdinand Porsche? Valier?) philosophy (Popper?), physics (Boltzman? Doppler? Mach? Pauli?), mathematics (heard of this guy Gödel?), genetics (Mendel?), etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Austrians

Von Neumann was Jewish, Hungarian and later, American. He was never an Austrian.

You are correct - edited. I had always learned of him as an Austro-Hugarian/American :).

Don't forget Scwartzenegger

Well, since his favorite phrase is "Hasta la vista, baby", and lives in California, he's obviously a Mexican! :)

von Mises: Galician Jew from Lvov (now a part of the Ukraine)

Oskar Morgenstern: German

Ferdinand Porsche: German

Valier: never heard of this guy until I looked him up just now; a true Austrian - albeit born in Italy and worked in Germany. Damned shame he died so young.

Karl Popper: Jew

Ludwig Boltzmann: the second real Austrian on this list.

Christian Doppler: another real Austrian...

Ernst Mach: Volksdeutsche from what is now Czech Republic.

Wolfgang Pauli: Czech-Jew, and related to Mach.

Kurt Gödel: German AMERICAN, F YEAH!! :)

Gregor Mendel: Volksdeutsche, from Silesia (now part of Czech Republic)

So I see only 3 Austrian on this list!

P.S. the Brits/Finns/Ukrainians/Russians always make a good joke at Germans' expense, but Austria always gets a free pass... I'm trying to right that wrong! :)

> Karl Popper: Jew

If you are going to assert that Jews cannot be Austrian, you may as well go all the way and give Hitler credit for being Austrian.

Ferdinand Porsche was born in modern-day Czech Republic, then Austria-Hungary, and later held Austrian and German citizenship. Morgenstern, while German-born, resided in Austria and the US. Gödel grew up in Czechoslovakia and considered himself an Austrian. He was German in the way someone from Belgium in the 1940s was German. Et cetera.

Due to changing borders, I'm not attributing Austria-Hungary's borders, but people who held Austrian citizenship after the breakup or resided in Austria proper were Austrian, regardless of where they were born. I'm ignoring the notion that Jews can't Austrian.

Freud?

Nah, Freud is a Galician Jew, not an Austrian. :)

Where you get that he was Croatian in the first place?

"Nikola Tesla was born to Serbian parents in the village of Smiljan, Austrian Empire near the town of Gospić, in the territory of modern-day Croatia. His baptismal certificate reports that he was born on 28 June (N.S. 10 July) 1856 to father Milutin Tesla, a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church.[12] His mother was Đuka Tesla, née Mandić, whose father was also a Serbian Orthodox priest."

It doesn't get any more Serbian.

> in the territory of modern-day Croatia

This is a ridiculous comment. So the Dalai Lama is Chinese?

So? The question was "Where you get that he was Croatian in the first place?" and the answer is that he was born in what is now Croatia. I'm sure that, if you took a survey, plenty of people would say the Dalai Lama is Chinese.

About a billion people agree with you, and a billion people don't.

The other several billion do not give a shit, even under the most promising of conditions, because they have real, actual, human problems in their modest, meager, live-a-day lives.

Are you fucking stupid, sir? Or are you simply ignorant? Do you not understand this is the very meta-issue that finds itself under debate? Are you incapable of abstract thought?

Which means absolutely nothing. If two Americans have a kid while living in China, would that make him a Chinese?

People often confuse ethnicity and nationality - you need to be more concrete with your example.

Two Caucasians (ethnicity) who are US citizens living in China gives birth to a baby in China, then the baby would be Caucasian (ethnicity), and American (nationality, by US law), but probably also Chinese (nationality, by Chinese law[1]).

Maybe that example is not so great because the baby would have dual-citizenship, so consider a different example:

3rd generation Chinese immigrants in the US who are born in America, never left the US to visit China (same as their parents), it is their grand parents who migrated from China. These 3rd generation immigrations are Chinese (ethnicity) and US citizens (nationality), also called Chinese-Americans (format: [ethnicity]-[nationality])[2]. These Chinese-Americans are not citizens of China, but they are ethnic Chinese.

Hope that clears up that one small point.

[1] Most countries have a 'if you're born here, you get our citizenship automatically' (I'm not sure about China specifically, just using it as an example).

[2] easy to mix up and confuse, but order matters here

> Most countries have a 'if you're born here, you get our citizenship automatically' (I'm not sure about China specifically, just using it as an example).

That principle is called 'jus soli'[1], and is far from universal. Only ~15% of all nations confer it. A few more grant it under restricted conditions. China is emphatically _not_ one of those countries.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

Did you mean the Caucasian ethnic groups -- i.e., Chechens, Ingush, Ossetian, et al, or the "Caucasian race" (which is itself a misnomer) -- whites. These are completely separate things.

The term Caucasian is highly confusing as it's a racist term invented by the same German who came up with Negroid and Mongloid, and is - as far as I know - only used in the United States. In fact, the Supreme Court in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) decided that Indians were "Caucasian", but were not white.

Also, China is a bad example, as Chinese is not an ethnicity, it's a nationality as China is a multi-ethnic nation. The ethnicities being Han (what most people consider to be "ethnic Chinese", Hui, et al.

So? Your question was "Where you get that he was Croatian in the first place?" and the answer is that he was born in what is now Croatia.

Yes, unless thhe parents decide not to (or the local law doesn't allow it for whatever reason)

Yes? 0.o

Huh? The answer is actually no. Not just for the legal (and or trivial) reasons that he wouldn't have neither the ethnicity not the nationality, but he also wouldn't share the chinese culture.

What kind of Americans? Say they are a Sioux-Polish American from Chicago and an Irish-Mexican-Mongolian American from Houston, then yeah, why not call the kid Chinese. My mate was born on holiday in Australia and only lived there for a week, yet had to go through naturalisation over 20 years later to become the same nationality as his parents, as they had forgot to fill out the forms at the time.

So presumably Tesla was a Croatian-Serb, or possibly a Serb-Croatian, and whether or not those two groups get along doesn't really affect that definition. I mean, I fully understand that it is a touchy subject, but I don't really think that it affects long dead physicists very much.

>What kind of Americans? Say they are a Sioux-Polish American from Chicago and an Irish-Mexican-Mongolian American from Houston, then yeah, why not call the kid Chinese.

It's still American.

(At least to us Europeans) what matters is the culture of the parents/kid, not the nationality or the ethnicity itself.

A 3rd generation Irish-American is an American, not an Irish, and a 3rd generation Chinese-American is by all means an American too.

Funny enough I have my own reasons for having thought he was Croatian. A few years ago I visited my ancestral village in Italy's Abruzzo region and there happened to be a street named after Tesla... I asked about it and learned that Tesla was from nearby, just across the Adriatic in Croatia. Hence in my head it was cemented.

Really I suppose I got the wrong idea in my head because Italians are much more familiar with their naval neighbor Croatia than further-away Serbia :)

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