Apparently, it happened without emotion: the workers came and slowly began to demolish. The work went on for two whole years (1924–1926) and, in the end, not one stone was left of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Warsaw [Fig. 7] At the beginning of the twentieth century, Poland was a bastion of Catholicism, so the destruction of a church in the capital city may have seemed out of step with popular sentiment, but to destroy a church that had only been completed twelve years earlier at that time smacked of sensationalism. The emotions behind such a decision must have been very strong. As a precaution against inciting an impassioned response, the demolition took a civil form, that is, it was a systematic and respectful demolition. This was certainly intended to calm the sensitive atmosphere in which this sacrilegious action took place, but it did nothing to diminish the power of the gesture. Such a gesture can only be understood in the context of violent nineteenth-century Russian imperialism, which turned art and saints into instruments of propaganda and identity. The destruction of the temple was, indeed, one way to oppose Russia's expansionist policies.

Dreaming Byzantium

The story of Russian imperialism has deep historical roots. Its origins can be traced back to the time when Ivan IV, known as the Terrible (1547–1584) was crowned “Tsar of All Russia” in 1547. Although the tendency of rulers to expand their territories was the practice of all major European powers in the sixteenth century (think, for example, of the brutal colonial policies of the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal), a glance at the history of the Russian Empire reveals that expansionist endeavours characterized Russian statehood from the reign of Ivan iv onwards. However, every imperial power requires rhetorical weapons to defend its ambitions—or to speak bluntly, it needs “excuses” for the inevitable imperial atrocities. This has often been done through the smoke screen of defending religious issues, protecting the oppressed or, and this is crucial for our reflection, through historical law, i.e. in the defence of policies in the light of (real or entirely imagined) historical claims. Russian power made abundant use of these tools, and at least since the early nineteenth century it can be said that “historical law” gained more and more space and power, especially in the context of an increasingly clearly declared relationship with the Byzantine Empire.