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Following the story of a public memorial, I discuss the change in the scale of the remembrance of loss among post-Soviet Armenians in Yerevan. The shift from forgotten to visible Armenian loss started in the mid-1960s with protest from below during Khrushchev's political thaw and culminated at the beginning of the twenty-first century in an institutionalized state policy of commemoration. I discuss the ways in which a new memorial landscape of loss is represented and how a new cult of death is intensified by the redesigning and visualization of a traumatic past. I highlight a specific process of sacralization related to the new politics of unrecognized, 'bad' death, in the language of Christian suffering. Finally I turn to the ways Armenians voice the forgotten loss in terms of a global morality by involving outside forces-new "protective ancestors"-in the sacred repertoire of the nation. To illustrate this change, I concentrate on the area surrounding the memorial for the Armenian Genocide on the Tsitsernakaberd hill in Yerevan.

This article highlights diasporic migrants' transnational linkages with and trips to their homeland. Second and later generations of diasporic Armenians, predominantly from the USA and Canada, claim to travel to the ancestral homeland in Armenia not as heritage tourists to see the holy Mount Ararat but to invest in local development through social work. Based on ethnographic research, in‐depth interviews with volunteers and text materials, this article identifies those specific features of the contemporary diasporic ‘sacred journey’ that differ from conventional return migrations. This new inter‐continental migratory path between North America and Armenia has a temporary character. By analysing the range of reasons why young professional Armenian‐Americans and Armenian‐Canadians should choose to travel the long distance to offer their services, this article provides insight into the decision to become a volunteer in Armenia and the ways non‐profit diasporic organizations channel and mobilize this transnational activity. The study shows that ‘ethnic’ volunteers are highly conscious of the modern understanding of mobility as being a marker of personal social status within the society in which they grew up. The study of a variety of imaginaries among members of a paradigmatic diasporic group, such as Armenians, shows how second and later diasporic generations take advantage of their multi‐cultural background to become transnational global actors.

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