Hungary [antikvár]

What is Hungary? From all the notions that come to mind when we look at it from the point of view of geogra-phy, ethnography, statistics, or any of the other sciences whether we consider it from a historical standpoint or from our own feelings and expectationswe must have a certain image of it. Somé people who hear about it and would like to find out more have trouble locating it on a map of Europe (although we all know we can locate it in the middle somewhere). Others immediately get an image of it based on what they have read, on stories and rumours. A few others living in the vicinity or just in-side the bordér are quite familiar with itwhich is to say, they know as much about it as they possibly can. So if we were to place all of these opinions and bases on a scale and examine them to-gether, we would find that the scale would go on indefi-nitely, and everything related to our values about Hungary our experiences, cultural backgrounds, interests, knowl-edgewould completely de-pend on which level of the scale we happen to identify with.This diversity is only natural, though. During its thousand-year history Hungary has be-come a symbol in its own right. We might be able to pinpoint its external features by looking at somé of the factsthat it comprises 93 032 square kilometres and its inhabitants number somé 10.5 milliónbut this would by no means teli us what its essential characteristics were, and the task of trying to de-cide what constitutes those characteristics would itself be problematic. Hungary's scenic areas lack the stunning featuresthe topographical extremesthat usually draw tourists: perhaps the only notable exception is the puszta, located in Hortobágy and Little Cumania National Park on the Hungárián Plain, where we can still visit horse-breeding ranches or see herds and flocks roaming the plains andwith somé effort might even witness a mirage.