Kozhanov, Ivan Kuzmich

Kozhanov, Ivan Kuz’mich 

Born May 12 (24), 1897; died Aug. 22, 1938. Soviet military figure, flag officer of the fleet second class (1935). Member of the Communist Party from 1917. Born in the stanitsa (large cossack village) of Voznesenskaia, now in Labinsk Raion, Krasnodar Krai.

Kozhanov studied in naval cadet classes in Petrograd from 1916. In 1918, while commanding a detachment of sailors on the Eastern Front, he fought against the White Czechs and the White Guards in the Volga region. He was appointed commander of the Naval Expeditionary Division in August 1920 and took part in routing General Ulagai’s landing party in the Kuban’.

In 1921 he participated in the suppression of the Kronstadt mutiny. He also became a member of the revolutionary military council of the Black Sea Fleet in 1921 and was chief of the Pacific Ocean Naval Forces from 1922 to 1924. Upon graduating from the Naval Academy in 1927, Kozhanov served as naval attaché in Japan in 1927–30, chief of staff of the Baltic Fleet in 1930, and commander of the Black Sea Fleet in 1931–37. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of the Red Star.