| Abstract | This article examines the relationship between monuments and publics, using Karin Barber's model of how texts interact with publics, which draws on the Bakhtinian notion of addressivity. Two monuments associated with the Yezidi community, Armenia's largest minority, are considered here. Both are of recent construction -- one sacred, the shrine at Shamiram, and the other secular, the monument to Cahangir Agha, a hero of the battle of Sardarabad. The first part of this article will focus on this theoretical framework. The second part will give some necessary contextualization, since this is the first discussion of any aspect of Caucasian Yezidi discourses of memory in a Western academic publication. These two examples clearly demonstrate the multivalency and addressivity of the monument; different individuals and groups are seeing different sets of meanings in them and responding to them in different ways. However, there are further observations to be made on their role in the formation of new publics.
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