Qualla: Malaya Zemlya

Malaya Zemlya: Introduction

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wikifotogallery, CC BY-SA 4.0. The plan called for them to be a distraction. On the storm-lashed night of 4 February 1943, some 800 Soviet naval infantrymen were meant to draw German attention to Cape Myskhako while the main assault went in elsewhere along the Black Sea coast. Then the main landing collapsed in ambush, and the decoy became the whole battle. The marines who waded ashore in the winter surf found themselves not creating a diversion but holding a beachhead - a sliver of shore below Novorossiysk they would come to call Malaya Zemlya, the 'Small Land.' It was small indeed. Holding it would cost far more than its size.

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Image: Wikifotogallery | CC BY-SA 4.0

Malaya Zemlya: The Wrong Landing Becomes the Right One

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Женовачев Андрей Николаевич, CC BY-SA 3.0. The operation began badly. A landing at Ozereyevka, meant to be the primary blow, was lost - a second attempt cut down in ambush. What had been conceived as a feint at Cape Myskhako was hastily promoted to the main effort, and the Black Sea Fleet put its men ashore through high w...

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Image: Женовачев Андрей Николаевич | CC BY-SA 3.0

Malaya Zemlya: The Major Who Would Not Yield

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Difoxy, CC BY-SA 4.0. At the head of the landing was Major Tsezar Kunikov, and the stand at Malaya Zemlya is inseparable from his name. Under his command the small force held its ground against odds that should have swept it into the sea. Kunikov did not survive the achievement. He was mortally wounde...

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Image: Difoxy | CC BY-SA 4.0

Malaya Zemlya: A Hinge of the Caucasus

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Difoxy, CC BY-SA 4.0. For all its modest size, Malaya Zemlya mattered strategically. Won during the wider Battle of the Caucasus, the beachhead on Cape Myskhako pinned German forces and opened the door to the eventual Soviet assault on Novorossiysk itself - the port whose capture would help pry loose ...

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Image: Difoxy | CC BY-SA 4.0

Malaya Zemlya: Memory and Myth

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rost.galis, CC BY-SA 4.0. Malaya Zemlya carries a strange double legacy. It is a place of genuine sacrifice - and it later became a place of political embellishment. The battle formed the subject of the first volume of Leonid Brezhnev's memoir trilogy, which inflated the future Soviet leader's own wartime...

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Image: Rost.galis | CC BY-SA 4.0