The behavior of an easy-plane spin antiferromagnetic chain with nodal
spin S = 1 in external magnetic field is studied theoretically. It is
shown that unlike the two-sublattice chain of spins S = 1/2, the syste
m has no zero-magnetization phase at nonzero external field if there i
s no one-ion magnetic anisotropy in the ground state. A high one-ion e
asy-plane anisotropy gives rise to the phase.