History
Although located not far off the northern coast of Russia, Severnaya Zemlya was not formally recorded until the 20th century. Earlier explorers did report a land mass in the general areas, most notably a report by Matvei Gedenschtrom and Yakov Sannikov in 1810 from their explorations out of Novaya Sibir.
Nested among the ice-locked waters of the Arctic Ocean, Severnaya Zemlya was not put on the map until the 1913–1915 Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition of icebreakers Taimyr and Vaigach. Led by Boris Vilkitsky, this venture accomplished its goal of exploring the uncharted areas of the Northern Sea Route in what was seen as the culmination of an enterprise initially conceived by emperor Peter I the Great to map the Northern Sea Route to the East.
On 22 August 1913 (3 September 1913 in the Gregorian calendar), the expedition raised the Russian flag on what they believed to be a single island. This new land was named Emperor Nicholas II Land, (Russian: Zemliya Imperatora Nikolaya Vtorova), after Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. However, in 1926 the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR renamed this land Severnaya Zemlya.
On 15 May 1928 the islands were overflown by Umberto Nobile and his crew in the Airship Italia. In the spring of 1931 the expedition of Georgy Ushakov and Nikolay Urvantsev (1930–1932) showed Severnaya Zemlya to be divided by four main islands, making the first detailed map of the archipelago during this expedition. The Graf Zeppelin, during its polar flight of July 1931, determined there were at least two islands (a full month after Ushakov and Urvantsev).
The islands of Severnaya Zemlya continued to be studied by a team of geologists from NIIGA (the Scientific Research Institute of Arctic Geology) in St. Petersburg under B. Kh. Egiazarov from 1948 to 1954, who compiled a comprehensive geological map.
There has been a request at the Krasnoyarsk Territory Legislative Assembly to reinstate the former name of Severnaya Zemlya as "Emperor Nicholas II Land". This request has been rejected for the time being.
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