Dragutin Lerman

Dragutin Lerman (August 24th, 1863 - July 12th, 1918) was a Croatian explorer . He was born with Požega, Slavonie, but he left his native area quickly. He was a member of the forwarding of Henry Morton Stanley (1882) with the Congo and one of the right-hand men of Stanley (" The Croatian is energetic, careful, highly spiritual… ")

Later, he was the confidant of Léopold II of Belgium and the representative of the Belgian government in Congo. Its first exploration lasted of 1882 with 1885, the second of 1888 with 1890, and the third of 1892 and 1894. The fourth six months in 1896 lasted. During a voyage through Congo in 1882, it discovered important water falls on the river Kouilou (river Kouilou-Niari) (or Kwil), and it named them the Zrinski falls in honor with its family (Nikola Zrinski and Petar Zrinski of Medjimurje).

Its newspaper was diffused in two books. The first published in 1891 under the title Dnevnik iz Afrike (Newspaper of the Africa), was written and printed by his/her friend of Požega, Julije Kempf, which be regularly informed by Lerman during exploration. Second was published in 1894 with like titrates Novi dnevnik iz Afrike (New newspaper of the Africa). Lerman provided the inspiration to two explorers (Mirko and Stjepan Seljan) who charted the Africa and the South America to the turning of the 20th century.

Most of the collection that Lerman brought at his place coming from Congo, 493 artefacts, were given to the ethnographic museum Zagreb and it belongs to the permanent exposure since. Its original newspaper is in the files of the academy of arts and sciences of Croatia.

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