FORGOTTEN GENIUS
The JOZEF MURGAŠ project is being developed in cooperation with RTVS and the Society for Multimedia Arts (SMU).
The authors (Ladislav Kaboš, Svatava Maria Kabošová) have been intensively researching the life and work of Jozef Murgaš, a remarkable figure in our history, for several years. They are preparing a feature film with the working title „Invisible Waves“. Alongside the feature film (similar in style to „Journey to the Impossible“), a 52-minute documentary entitled "Forgotten Genius" is being produced simultaneously. While the feature film allows for the artistic license necessary to build a dramatic narrative, the documentary focuses on facts, photographs, and documents...
Thanks to the cooperation of the US Embassy in Bratislava, research for the project was also conducted in the United States. The filmmakers recorded locations significant to Murgaš's story.
The project tells the fascinating story of a true Renaissance man – Jozef Murgaš – a pioneer and inventor in wireless telegraphy, radio broadcasting, and wireless communication. Reverend Murgaš was not only talented in the arts — having studied painting in Budapest and at the Munich Academy — but he was also knowledgeable in botany and entomology. Above all, he had tremendous talent and intuition as an inventor in electrical engineering.
In 1896, Murgaš was appointed pastor in the newly founded mining town of Wilkes-Barre in the Appalachian Mountains in the United States. Here, in a wooden extension next to the rectory, he set up a laboratory where he created his greatest inventions. Though he had no team of assistants or access to state-of-the-art equipment, he compensated with immense diligence and extraordinary talent.
Murgaš is the author of 13 inventions patented by the United States Patent Office in Washington. His inventions became significant competition for the discoveries of Guglielmo Marconi (Nobel Prize winner) and Reginald A. Fessenden. Even after a 1916 court case involving these internationally celebrated inventors, Murgaš's 1904 invention was declared to have priority.
His work attracted the attention of the entire American professional community. In the summer of 1905, US President Theodore Roosevelt personally visited Wilkes-Barre to learn about Murgaš's most significant invention — the tone system.
An exceptional personality, an exceptional story. Murgaš pushed science a step further... We are working closely with experts from the Czech Technical University in Prague, the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, and the Jozef Murgaš and Jozef Gregor Tajovský Club on this project.
Our heroes do not complain about the difficult conditions in which they create and work. Murgaš, if he could choose, would rather conduct research in an elite laboratory than in a makeshift wooden shed. Never give up — that is their shared credo...
