Selakovic: Serbia has purchased valuable archival material about Mileva Maric Einstein

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister of Culture Nikola Selakovic said on Friday correspondence between Albert Einstein and his wife Mileva Maric Einstein (1875-1948), recently purchased by the Ministry of Culture at a London auction, represented valuable archival material and would be used to set up a personal archival fund of Maric Einstein, a renowned Serbian mathematician and physicist.

"The value of this material that we have purchased and that is coming to Serbia lies in the fact that it will be our largest volume of material about Mileva herself, about her work and her personality," Selakovic said.

In a statement to Tanjug, Selakovic said that, with comprehensive support from the president and the PM of Serbia and good cooperation with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Culture had purchased 43 autographed letters written by Albert Einstein and ten letters written to him by Mileva Maric Einstein - a total of 177 handwritten pages - at a Christie's auction.

He said the correspondence included letters about the private relationship between Albert Einstein and Mileva Maric Einstein, as well as about Mileva's influence on the formation of Albert Einstein's scientific thought.

It also includes the couple's marriage certificate and a document on a fine handed by the Swiss authorities to Albert Einstein for illegal residence in Switzerland.

Selakovic said the purchased material would be more than sufficient to set up a personal archival fund of Mileva Maric Einstein at the Archives of Serbia.

"Next year is a major anniversary - 150 years since the birth of our great scientist, and there was no more beautiful way to prepare for that celebration than to purchase the material, which will no longer be in private hands, but in the possession of our state," Selakovic said.