Iunker, Vasilii Vasilevich

Iunker, Vasilii Vasil’evich 

(also Johann Wilhelm Junker). Born Mar. 25 (Apr. 6), 1840, in Moscow; died Feb. 1 (13), 1892, in St. Petersburg. Russian explorer of Africa.

Iunker received a medical education in Dorpat and Góttingen. From 1873 to 1875 he traveled through Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt. His most important trips were to Central Africa from 1876 to 1878 and from 1879 to 1886. During these expeditions he explored the Bahr al-Ghazal (a tributary of the White Nile), the divide between the Nile and the Congo, and the basin of the Uele River. Iunker’s collection of ethnographic material is housed in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Leningrad.

WORKS

Reisen in Afrika, 1875–1886, vols. 1–3. Vienna, 1889–91. [Russian abridged edition: Puteshestviia po Afrike (1877–1878 i 1879–1886), Moscow, 1949.]

REFERENCE

Gornung, M. B., Iu. G. Lipets, and I. N. Oleinikov. Istoriia otkrytiia i issledovaniia Afriki. Moscow, 1973.