ABSTRACT
The social unconscious of Serbs is considered through the study of the Serb-American scientist Tesla and his fate. In spite of Tesla’s extraordinary scientific gifts to the world, e.g. alternating current, radio and endeavoring to provide free electricity for all people, he stayed underground in the West and died in poverty. There is long-term bitterness about his denigration and persecution in terms of his Serbian identity and creativity. Aspects of the social character of Serbs are discussed in terms of the interplay of what they regard as the earthly and heavenly dimensions of their lives, linked to Tesla’s preferences in the “war of currents”. The concept of zvezdobrojac (a person attached to the stars and the heaven) is used in order to examine several psychosocial areas, such as the clashes of cultures between the East and the West.
