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 happ

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.