One day in 1863, Milutin, an Orthodox priest, took his two sons, Nikola and Dane, to horse riding on the fields nearby Smiljan, a small village in the mountains of Croatia. Nikola, the youngest, was only 7 years of age.
The horse Dane took was an untamed Arabian breed. It was the first time he rode it. He wanted to prove to his father that he could live up to his so many brought-up appraisals. Dane was, after all, the pride and the hope of the family.
But he was unprepared. With a few sudden moves, Dane fell of the horse and as he touched down, he hit his head against a rock. He perished in front of his father's bare eyes. Young Nikola was there, witnessing the tragedy.
Milutin had never been able to get over the loss of his first son. Immediately after the funeral processions, he took his family and moved to a nearby town, Gospic. For the next sixteen years, he served as preacher at the Great Martyr George's church.
Milutin had always been an activist, taking many causes and fighting for the rights of his people. He was a man of society. After Dane's death he developed odd habits and started taking fever causes. He came to be called 'Old Man Milovan' well before being physically old. Milutin and his wife Djuka were incapable of channeling the love they kept for Dane towards Nikola.
And the young Nikola was deeply disturbed, not only because of the little appreciation coming from his parents, but also because of the loss of his brother, who acted like a compass to him. On top of it all, he had been very happy with his life in the little village of Smiljan. Leaving to Gospic affected him even more. He missed playing with the animals in the farmyard. He felt like a prisoner in the new home.
His relationship with his father was irrevocably altered by Dane's death. Milutin was unable to tap into the dormant potential laying inside of Nikola. As a result, the young boy grew up with little confidence in himself, always seeking to win back the affection of his parents.
Milutin wanted for Nikola to follow the same cleric life path he had adopted for himself. So, he took this matter to his personal care by working with Nikola every single day. He taught his son how to guess other people's thoughts, how to find defects in the expressions of others and how to do long mental calculations; all to improve Nikola's memory and mental capacity.
At the same time, Nikola gradually discovered pleasure in reading books. His father's library was enormous, so he could spend days at end lost behind closed doors sucking up knowledge. Instead of being permissive, Milutin would fly into a rage when catching Nikola in the library. He even hid the candles when he found out that his son had been reading in secret.
But what did the young boy do?
He would sneak-out tallow from the storeroom and craft his own candles. Now, Nikola Tesla could read all night...
This short story has been inspired and adapted from Ben Carlson's biography of Nikola Tesla. If you enjoyed it and you'd like a follow-up, please let me know by commenting below.
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Credits for Images: Rafael Mikaelyan and Densus
Cristi Vlad, Self-Experimenter and Author
Thank you for a great read! I will keep an eye out for your posts.
thanks! while this is my first attempt of fiction (and a poor one), I'm quite keen on taking it a step further, especially since I can derive so much inspiration from Tesla's life.
I like Tesla's life because it shows that he persued his interests. Which sometimes made him money and other times did not....overall his success is shown to be in terms of what he contributed to modern day understandings of the inventions he was trying to get off the ground and not in any financial sense of the word "Success."
well, yes. sadly, he's the antithesis of Edison. but Tesla was a mad scientist. he devoted his entire life to work, which may be great or not. I guess from his perspective it was great. he didnt care too much of patenting his inventions or making money. I assume if he would have devoted the minimum of attention to those pursuits he would have been one of the richest man of all times...