Dragutin Lerman
Croatian explorer (1863–1918)
Dragutin Lerman (24 August 1863 – 12 July 1918) was a Croatian explorer.
Biography
Lerman was born in Požega, Slavonia, but he left his home very early. He was a member of the 1882 Henry Morton Stanley expedition to Congo and was one of Stanley's most trusted men. ("The Croat is energetic, cautious, in high spirits...")
Later, he was the confidant of Leopold II of Belgium and the very representative of the Belgian government in the Congo. His first exploration trip lasted from 1882 to 1885, the second from 1888 to 1890, and the third between 1892 and 1894. The fourth lasted six months during 1896. During the journey through Congo in 1882, he discovered huge waterfalls on the Kouilou River, (or Kwil), and named them the Zrinski chutes to honor the national family of rulers (Nikola Zrinski and Petar Zrinski of Međimurje) from his native country.
His diary was transferred into two books. The first, published in 1891 under the title Dnevnik iz Afrike (Diary from Africa), was written and printed by his friend from Požega, Julije Kempf, whom Lerman informed about the course of the exploration. The second one was published in 1894 with the title Novi dnevnik iz Afrike (New diary from Africa).
The public source identifies “Dragutin Lerman” as croatian explorer (1863–1918). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dragutin, Lerman and Croatian.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q721506. VIAF identifies the subject as 35262172. The Library of Congress control number is n93074979. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1863, 1918, 1882 and 1885.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dragutin Lerman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.