Miloje Popovic Kavaja*
Writer and journalist
Belgrade, Serbia
POLYVALENT PERSON OF NIKOLA TESLA
( Memorial Conference „ Tesla : Past, Present, Future „ / Manhattan – New York , January 12, 2018 / Wyndham New Yorker Hotel / Organized by Tesla Science Foundation in Philadelphia – president Nikola Lonchar )
As well as a „time clock“ or „clocks“ placed on the increase of population in the world, America and other countries, which registers a new number or four newborns every second in the last thirty years, there have also been a great number of books, articles, discussions, seminars, statements and other works about Nikola Tesla in the entire world, so that even the professional institutions which deal with Tesla’s life can hardly register them all. Tesla has become a personage in science.
But it hasn’t always been that way. Although Tesla’s fame from the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th never faded away completely, it came to near obscurity. His multi-faceted character, which could be seen in a wide, I would say planetary scope and interest not only in engineering, but also in culture and the future and well-being of humanity, gave him fame in his time, but it made him a contradictory personality: he was well before his time; so much that many considered him a wizard and a magician.
The author of the extensive biography of Nikola Tesla, Mark J. Seifer, whose 600 page work was translated to Serbian in 2012, was astonished when he engaged in writing a doctorate about Tesla, the genius from Smiljane who lived and worked in New York and America for six decades and contributed greatly to the development of this country and the world. Seifer discovered that the hero of his research was almost completely unknown to the contemporary encyclopedias and lexicons and that his name had been covered in dust in the old archives and scientific institutions. But when he started to dig more seriously and look for better sources and information, Seifer concluded that he was on his way to study a unique man in the scientific history of America and the world: „It confused me that Tesla’s name is so obscure,“ Seifer wrote during the eighties of the 20th century, when he started on the quest for shining a light on the person of this strange man whom many thought was a wizard and a psychic. Seifer asks: „Why is his (Tesla’s) name forgotten, after he was on the front pages of the whole world at the turn of the century?“
Of course, Seifer was not the first to discover this injustice towards Tesla, because many scientists and experts (although very few and far between) have also written about this strange phenomenon in the meantime – for how does such a great man to fall into oblivion, as if he never existed? The fact that Serbian immigrants in America have constantly nourished the memory of Tesla was significant, but not for the wider scientific and media audience which forms the attitude towards and value of certain successful people. One of these was an American, William Broad, who wrote in New York Times on August 28, 1984, after the symposium on Tesla’s work: „It was Nikola Tesla, not Marconi, who invented the first radio; it was Tesla, not Edison, who devised the system of electric power distribution now used throughout the world.“
The symposium took place in Colorado Springs. 27 discourses on the scientific heritage of the great inventor and visionary were presented. Describing in detail Tesla’s most significant inventions and experiments, among which some of the most important were realized at the very same spot where the aforementioned assembly took place , the author cites American scientist W. A. Berend, who stated in 1917 when Tesla received an important acknowledgement from the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, that: „If we eliminate from our industrial society the results of Tesla’s work, the wheels of the industry would stop turning, electric trollies and trains would halt, our cities would be left in the dark, our factories would be dead and without work.“
Edison and Marconi, of course, are not any kind of top criterion for evaluating Tesla’s work in the history of science and civilization. They are undoubtedly great names in American and world science, which no one can deny, and I use them more as metaphors for assessing Tesla’s work, seeing that they are his contemporaries and people whose destinies and lives interlaced with Tesla’s. I could have used many others: before, in Tesla’s time and after him. What’s important for this occasion is to remind ourselves of the magnificent work of Tesla, which can be ascertained even without comparison with anyone, including the two aforementioned giants. They are merely benchmarks so we can figuratively and more firmly point out what is undisputed even today: that the work of Nikola Tesla didn’t get the place it deserves, not on American or on the world scale.
We must not fool ourselves and think that Tesla is talked about everywhere with the same excitement as in our country. Serbs are a people with great emotional charge, sometimes prone to exaggerate and magnify things, and our obsession with historical myths is not unknown. In Belgrade and the rest of Serbia, Tesla was always written about with great respect; many details of his biography and work are known, about his commitment to his Serbian roots and visit to Belgrade in 1892, his inventions and the hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls. And rightly so. With few exceptions, has it been written like that in America, Europe and other parts of the world? No! And why? That is precisely the topic of this short and humble discourse about this great scientist. We don’t need to be convinced by anyone about Tesla’s greatness, nor reminded about his seven hundred patents or the superiority of Tesla’s alternating current over Edison’s direct current. No one needs to talk to us about his induction motor and rotating magnetic field, about his contribution to the invention of radio, wireless telegraphy and telephony, about his successful experiments with teleautomatics and his vision of wireless power transfer.
Several years ago, I got a letter as a response to my message about Tesla to a certain number of friends in Serbia and the world from a well-known architect Stojan Maksimović, designer of Sava centar. In laying out his opinion that Tesla never got deserved recognition and material benefits during his lifetime, he cited the news he heard on American public radio, which covers the whole territory of the United States: „Nikola Tesla was a citizen of Austro-Hungarian monarchy, who, by coming to America, became a well-known scientist in the field of electrical engineering.“ And that was all.
The New York Times and the American National Public Radio viewpoints speak of great oscillations in the assessment of Tesla’s work. Those who are familiar with Tesla’s life and accomplishments raise him to heavens, while others accept him only as much as it suits them. While Edison and Marconi (we use them as benchmarks here) are known to every American high school student, citizen and journalist, Tesla is not. Notoriety, of course, is not the criteria of the value of a man, nor of his work, and this is drastically demonstrated in Tesla’s case.
***
Who are the admirers of Tesla’s work? First, of course, are the scientists in the fields of electrical engineering, communications and related domains, who revere Tesla as one of the greatest creators and inventors. The American Institute of electrical engineers (AIEE), with over one hundred thousand members and almost two century long tradition, is the organization which could be called Tesla’s parent organization. It continually nourishes the memory of his person. Tesla was vice president of this distinguished fellowship from 1892 to 1894, and is now an honorary member. Every year this organization gives an award bearing his name. In addition to many symposiums and meetings dedicated to Tesla, this institution has a wealth of documentation on its preeminent member in its archives, it organizes exhibitions and it helped in building the monument in Niagara Falls in 1976. Dr Charles F. Scott, president of this association, at one time stated the following: „The evolution of electric power from the discovery of Faraday in 1831 to the initial great installation of the Tesla polyphase system in 1896 is undoubtedly the most tremendous event in all engineering history.“
The other organisation which continually honors the memory of this great scientist’s work is the Tesla Memorial Society of New York. I was once a humble member of its Executive Board. This association, which has successfully operated for over three decades, created centers all over America and in Europe, Australia and Asia, in scientific institutions and universities as well as in public life and media. It is especially active among the people of Serbian descent, which count over one million. It is not exaggerating to say that this organization, with its many affiliates and connections all over America, besides the aforementioned American Institute of Electrical Engineers, is the biggest promoter and researcher of Tesla’s name and work. It would be too much to list all this association has done and what it is doing today, but I must mention William H. Terbo, Tesla’s grand – nephew and president of this association for many years, professor Dr Jasmina Vujić, successful scientist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the vice president and Dr Ljuba Vujović, tireless previous Secretary General, now the president for over three continuous decades, the force behind this movement, and the initiator and realizer of many useful and good projects.
It would be unfair to single out only our certain emigrant organizations, because they also honor Tesla and the preservation of his memory, but I would distinguish the Serbian Unity Congress and its president Miroslav Michael Đorđević, as well as the Serbian Orthodox Church in this country. I especially honor New York and the ill-fated Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sava with its deacon, Father Majstorović. I would also like to mention the great contribution of Dr Bogdan Maglić, great physicist and inventor, to the popularization of Tesla; for decades, until his passing several years ago, he commited himself to all activities related to Tesla. Living in New York and Chicago several times in the first decade of the 21st century, I had the pleasure of meeting with a number of tireless initiators in the promotion of Nikola Tesla’s work. In Chicago, it is Slobodan Pavlović, who for his native town and his country built the famous bridge over Drina, which bears his name, and by Bijeljina, he started to build a whole town – where already an University, bank and other institutions have been built. In Chicago, where the largest concentration of our people can be found, not only on American soil but in the world, Serbian Radio Chicago has broadcast brilliantly for a quarter of the century. Its tireless editor Milorad Ravasi talks about Tesla and his work in his very popular programs.
I feel the need to remind you that our diplomatic colony in New York in the 70’s of the 20th century played an important role in the revival of image and work of Nikola Tesla, who was at that time called „the greatest forgotten New Yorker.“ The consul general at the time, Dr Milan Bulajić (he was later successfully succeeded by Vasa Vesković), was the first to start the flywheel which brought Tesla back, at least in part, to the throne of fame and recognition which he deserves (I say this as a witness and participant of these events). Bulajić is, along with Dr Maglić and the aforementioned American Institute of Electrical Engineers, deserving of the credit that broadscale program which coincided with the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the USA was realized. Maglić and Bulajić with the cooperation of professor Rad Lenček at the beginning of 1976, organized prominent symposiums on Mihajlo Pupin and Nikola Tesla at the Columbia University, with full collaboration of its dean at the time, Harvey Picker. Other individuals from the New York City Administration also contrebuted to this. All these people are no longer with us, but their contribution to the promotion of Tesla’s work is important and indisputable. We should also mention that the Consulate General of Serbia in Chicago (Consul General Mirjana Živković) represents, even today, a significant reliance to all who deal with Tesla’s work and is one of the financiers of yearly assemblies dedicated to Tesla. More will be mentioned on these topics later.
When Dr Bulajić visited Niagara Falls and the spot on Goat Island where once was the hydroelectric power plant which Tesla created, all he found was a single obelisk – a remnant of the gate of the old plant – with a plaque containing the names of several managers and engineers from the time, and even the name of one gate-keeper. Tesla’s name was not there. Right there, on the spot, as Dr Bulajić remembers, he came to an agreement with the Director General of the Niagara Corporation to start an initiative to erect a monument, which was realized on July 24, 1976. Regarding the achievement of this project, I would like to mention Dr Frank Jankins, president of the aforementioned institute of engineers, and George Martin, president of the Niagara Falls State Park. They are very deserving in that sense. Writer Stanley H. Barkan, the only surviving one of those mentioned earlier, also deserves respect. He published the first poster in America on the occasion of Tesla’s jubilee, and his brother, well-known composer Mark Barkan, composed a piece on Tesla, which he personally performed, accompanied by a piano. I would do a great diservice if I failed to mention Vera Von Wiren, City University of New York professor of Slavic studies who did a great deal in the 70’s for the popularization of Tesla. Their enthusiasm, dedication and love of the work of Nikola Tesla deserve the attention and respect of the future generations.
Following the events related to Nikola Tesla, I also must mention Dr Pavle Savić, a one time president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Dr Koča Jončić, president of the Centre of Serbs in Diaspora and, especially, professor Dr Aleksandar Marinčić, a long-time director of Nikola Tesla Museum, who was a living encyclopedia of Tesla’s legacy, and to whom we who are not of that vocation cannot even come close to. Also, Dr Blagota Žarković, who was in his time the director of Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Serbia. Dr Koča Jončić, president of Centre of Serbs in Diaspora in the 70’s, unselfishly committed himself and was a driving force in getting the support of our immigrants, authorities and institutions in this country for Tesla Monument in Niagara Falls. Today, I would like to mention, besides the agile Vladimir Jelenković, who was for many years the director of the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade. Recently, Ivona Jevtić has been named the acting director. Ivona was the Secretary of Culture for the City of Belgrade and up until recently, the promoter as well as the journalist of Radio Belgrade. I would also mention Miša Novaković, whose „Tesla’s planetary evening gatherings“ have, for more than two decades, contributed to the explanation of Tesla’s work. And I cannot forget to include Patriarch Irinej and Željko Sarić from the Postal Museum of Serbia and author of several successful biographies of this giant of electrical engineering. And Nikola Lončar has also become an important name in the promotion of Tesla and his work in the first decade of the 21st century. He founded the Tesla Science Foundation in Philadelphia, which was very active and one of the pivots of Tesla Memorial. Even today, it plays a big role in the study and memory of Tesla’s contribution to the world science and civilization.
***
Besides the previously mentioned Tesla Monument in Niagara Falls, erected thirty years ago, which is the copy of the work by Frane Kršinić in front of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Electrical Engineering, erected in 1963, there are several more memorials in New York dedicated to Tesla. Along with Nikola Tesla street corner on 40th Street and 6th Avenue, there is also a commemorative plaque on 27th Street between 6th Avenue and Broadway on the building which once was The Gerlach Hotel, where Tesla lived for a while, is The Radio Wave Building which is also named after him. This plaque was unveiled in March of 1977 by the Manhattan Borough President at the time, Percy Sutton. The commemorative plaque on The New Yorker Hotel, where Tesla lived the longest, makes another component of the commemorative complex of Tesla in New York. The size of Tesla’s picture in the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration in the Statue of Liberty near New York even surpasses Einstein’s. The Tesla Monument was unveiled 10 July 2006 on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls, the work of Canadian sculptor Les Drysdale. The same year at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Perth, Australia, Tesla’s bust was erected. Pirotians boast, not without reason, that they erected Tesla’s bust in their town way back in 1989, which not many people know. As Aleksandar Vlajković, until recently a high-ranking official in Serbian government for the sector of diaspora, still very active even today, said, „The intention of the Serbian administration is to build monuments and memorials to Tesla in the next several years in a certain number of the big cities around the world, even though Tesla never visited them. Vlajković contributed a great deal to this. In Belgrade at the airport in Surčin, which got its name after the great scientist, on 10 July 2006 a monument was unveiled whose author is Drinka Radovanović. There was some controversy about the quality of the monument in art and sculptors’ circles and among the public. Also in preparation is the reconstruction of what was once known as the Tesla Tower in Shoreham, a town, some sixty miles away from New York, 187 feet tall, (which was a tall structure at the time) which Tesla planned to eventually be the first telecommunication center in the world. Besides the wireless transmission of electrical energy, it would also serve for broadcast of radio-waves, wireless telegraphy and telephony. The tower worked for only four years (from 1901 to 1905) and shut down for financial reasons. This original Tesla memento was destroyed during World War One, because someone in the American government thought that it could be used as landmark for enemy submarines. The Tesla Memorial Society of New York, together with its American partners and immigrant organizations, has been advocating for ten years for the Tower to be reconstructed to become a Nikola Tesla museum on American soil. Initial funds have been collected: more than one million dollars for the restoration of Tesla’s only remaining center for scientific research. The president of Serbia at the time, Tomislav Nikolić, unveiled a monument to Nikola Tesla in Shoreham on 23 Septembar 2013,which reverberated throughout the American, our, and the world’s zeitgeist.
Among other acclaim, along with a number of successful symposiums, we should mention the postal stamp edition “Honoring American Inventors” from 1983, in which Tesla, too, was represented. And the unit of magnetic field strength was named Tesla. During his lifetime, Tesla was awarded the gold medal by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and the University of Paris made him an Honorary Doctor of Technical sciences on November 6, 1937. We could list more awards, but it is not necessary on this occasion.
***
After these mentions and reminders it is never-the-less unpredictable to engage in an analysis of the causes as to why Tesla didn’t get the place he deserves. Tesla, with his great amount of documentation, a heritage he left and with various interpretations of his work, still presents a mystery. A mystery to which he contributed with his way of life and methods of dealing with people. The films in which Tesla is recorded still haven’t been found and we are still searching for a recording of his voice. The only acoustic record related to Tesla is the radio speech of the legendary Mayor of New York, La Guardia, recorded three days after Nikola Tesla’s death on January 7, 1943. This record has been found thanks to Dr Vujović, but only recently in 2004 in the New York City Archives.
From 1933 to 1943, Nikola Tesla celebrated his birthday every year with friends, scientists, journalists and poets in the New Yorker Hotel, where he lived on the 33rd floor. Every day he went out to feed the pigeons, but the acoustical and film records of these events still haven’t been found, although it is known that they were filmed and recorded by media.
Finally, without any pretensions and aware of the weakness of my approach, I would like to mention several reasons why, in my humble opinion, Tesla has been unjustly neglected, not only in comparison with Edison and Marconi, but also in the comparison with many others, and especially in relation to the work he created and his contribution which he bestowed on humankind.
1. Tesla, the son of Serbian orthodox priest from Smiljane in Lika, took many characteristics of the people whose region he came from. One of those characteristics is excessive arrogance and pride, which prevented him, even in the hardest situations, to accept any help which resembled charity. “I don’t need help but hardship. The harder, the better. I work best when I struggle with obstacles.” Those are his words which clearly demonstrate my perspective.
2. From his pride sprung spite, which sometimes impelled him to engage in enormous projects which he wasn’t certain that he could lead, along with a lack of personnel and finances because he liked to work alone, without assistants and outside help. Because of this, his projects and laboratories didn’t last long, not in New York, nor in Colorado or Shoreham. He didn’t want outside help, he was annoyed by the ambitions of his financiers to rule his actions and measure them with financial yardstick. He needed time for certain experiments, and the financiers hovered over their dollars closely, expecting quick results which would give them back their money and new riches. These people, good businessmen and financiers, looked at Tesla only through fiscal glasses, because their educational range was too small for them to realize what it would mean both for them and the humankind if the world could be covered in Tesla’s electricity and communications. They wanted the return on their money right away and Tesla’s visions, many of which are being realized only today now that humankind has become a global village, didn’t interest them.
3. There is the famous lawsuit with the financier Westinghouse that started over the use of induction motors, the bases of industrial machinery and home appliances today. Westinghouse was concerned about the amount of money Tesla would get for every horsepower realized; Tesla became angry and tore up the already prepared contract for ten million dollars, an extremely large sum at that time, only to spend the last years of his life with a meagre pension of 660 dollars a month. A similar thing happened with the financier Morgan about the Tower in Shoreham. Morgan asked Tesla to tell him how the electric current which would pass through the ionosphere to the whole world from there, would be billed. Tesla didn’t want to give him an answer because for him, that was a secondary thing which would be attended to only later. Today, wireless telephony and internet are successfully calculated and billed, and it would be the same with electricity if Tesla’s epochal vision is ever realized.
4. Following all this, certainly for his whole life Tesla couldn’t make alliances with any company or project in the long run. He built his laboratories, in which he more or less worked alone, inviting experts and friends to help him or give him advice as the need arose, but he was unable to be a part of any institution or group. His character sprung from his conviction that the presence of others or working in a group would make his great visionary projects such as the one in Niagara Falls impossible. To be only a member of some team, and work under the direction of someone else, someone who had inferior capabilities and views, was unthinkable to Tesla. And he often scattered his strength on many projects. It is no wonder that following this philosophy he was left without work and financial help.
5. Tesla was in no hurry to materialize and commercialize his discoveries and inventions until they were completely and professionally completed, and for that he usually lacked sufficient manpower and professional and material help, so that his projects remained unfinished. “I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain,” Tesla notes in his book „My Inventions.“
6.Tesla’s planetary view of the world and life, his conviction that he would live to be more than hundred years old if he lived in isolation and hermetically, his assertion that he communicated with creatures from Mars, his foresight and work in Dayton on weapons more precise than laser, called “Tesla’s Secret Weapon”, and some of his eccentricities – I would call them games with others – made him in the eyes of some, an eccentric and a magician, and some cults used him as the model for their Übermensch who can steer lightnings and thunders and rule the world. To this have involuntarily contributed his actual undertakings and accomplishments, not only in Niagara Falls, but also many others (like the steering of a small boat with radio waves), as well as elaborate principles of automatic vehicles which would move out of boundaries of visibility, and rockets which are steered remotely with the help of radio-electrical impulses. It is not by accident that the world has recognized him in the United Nations in 1997 as a forerunner of modern teleautomatics like the landing of the American Mars Rover.
7. Someone said that Tesla carried the nineteenth century forward into the twentieth, and the twentieth into the twenty first, in which we now live. Tesla lived in two centuries, but his thought and vision extended into the distant future. This vision was seldom understood, with the exception of rare talented individuals, a few of his contemporaries. That is precisely the greatest tragedy of people who see and know more than others and Tesla is an obvious example of this. He was and was not the man of his time, because due to his actions and pursuits, he belonged to other, distant worlds which haven’t yet been apprehended. His proposal of a ring around the equator and a world system of stations on that road – as he called them – his conceptions which aspired towards elimination of war as the world evil and many other ideas are awaiting the future to be evolved.
8. Contrary to his financiers and factory owners, as well as collegues, who lived in the time of industrial and also financial revolution in America, where the ideals were for all projects to be immediately materialized and for people to become rich quickly, Tesla, as a newcomer from the other part of the world, where people had different views on the meaning of life, stood out from his contemporaries, who could understand him only partially. He was a scientist-poet, engineer-dreamer, inventor-visionary. “I recited poetry which I always loved passionately. At that age I knew entire books by heart, word for word. One of these was Goethe’s Faust”, says Tesla in his autobiography, remembering his childhood and youth. And he adds: “The sun was just setting and reminded me of the glorious passage:
The glow retreats, done is the day of toil;
It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;
Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil
Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!
A glorious dream! though now the glories fade.
Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid
Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me.
***
For me, who humbly presented my research on the life and work of Tesla, it is an honor that Nikola Lončar invited me to take part in this conference and disclose my view of the great world inventor and visionary about whom I published a book which had three editions, “Another Life of Nikola Tesla.” Published in Belgrade in 2016, by the notable publishing company “Albatros Plus,” directed by Jagoš Đuretić for many years.
Executive Director Nikola Lončar of the Tesla Science Foundation from Philadelphia held that first conference dedicated to Nikola Tesla in New York in the beginning of January 2014. It has taken place each year from then on, so that this one today, on January 12, 2018 in the Wyndham New Yorker Hotel, is its continuation.
Its significance can be seen in the fact that the participants of that first assembly, which was attended by notable names from America and our diaspora, started an initiative for further education on Tesla’s scientific work which has been neglected for many years and is unknown to the American and world public, for Tesla’s work to be studied in schools and to be included in textbooks and encyclopedias. This is an important episode in the restoration of Tesla’s person and the acknowledgment of everything that he has done for the advancement of America and the whole world.
Belgrade – Serbia, January 12, 2019
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
*Miloje Popovic Kavaja ( CV in brief )
Miloje Popović Kavaja
Miloje Popović was born in Belgrade in 1936. where he graduated from the Faculty of Law. He used to be a youth activist and was the editor of List Mladih Beograda. He started his career as a professional journalist for the newspapers, Student and Mladost. He was a successful journalist for Belgrade daily Politika from 1966 until 1972.
He moved from the position of advisor for press and culture in the Serbian Government to the Yugoslavian Cultural Information Centre in New York (1974 – 1978). He was the general director of the Sava Conventio Centre from 1978 until 1986. Following that he was the plenipotentiary minister in the Federal Foreign Affairs Ministry and the assistant to the Federal Minister for International Economic Relations and Tourism.
He is currently active as international consultant to DHL, specialized in the field of media and contacts with government authorities and agencies. He is permanent consultant to DHL since 1997 . He is also member and advisor to the Serbian Writers Association. In addition to his decade long contribution to Politika and other newspapers, he is currently a regular contributor to dailies Politika and Danas.
He has published around 50 books on different issues , starting with the book about the student movement around the world in 1965, following the books about America, China and South Korea as well as TV stories, Memoirs of a Journalist etc. His wrote the book about Sava Center – Courage and Adventure (2007). On the occasion of 40 years since “Lola”’s tour in India, he wrote the Tour of Dreams, published by AKUD “Lola” (2007).
He is the author of the verses for the popular song of national importance, Marš na Drinu (Marching on the Drina) composed by Stanislav Binički, which until 1964 had no lyrics. Poem on Tesla entered volume I of the Americana Anthology (1976) and Poem on New York earned him the title of New York poet of the year for 1976 by the New York Poetry Forum.
His latest books are collections of selected articles and interviews to Politika in the period between 1959 and 2009, as well as a collection of poems in the same period.
He was a member of the Yugoslavian – American bicentennial committee which erected the monument to Nikola Tesla on Niagara Falls in 1976, thus his name was written on the commemorative plague. He is a member of the managing board of the Tesla Memorial Society in New York.
He has been using the literary pseudonym Kavaja since 2006.