Hungary [antikvár]

I recall my first journey abroad as one of the memorable experiences of my life. I was waiting in the spacious lobby of the airport to be summoned for passport control and customs inspection. After this we had to enter another waiting-room, from which there was no turning back. As the stewardess said, this was a "no man's land," or rather an international zone. I was in my own country and yet in a strange land, or, if you prefer, the other way around. On first thought this seemed to be funny, but when I reconsidered my position it occurred to me, almost with a shock, that homelandone's countrywas an elastic, a very real and yet volatile concept, which, if necessary, could be squeezed into a waiting-room, or a book, or even into my soul and nerves.At other times it can expand boundlessly. Although it is true that every distance on the globe has been shrunk by modem transport, nevertheless we can tour our relatively small country for weeks, months and even years, and still there will be newer and newer things to seedespite the fact that Hungary is commonly known to be devoid of azure-blue seas, dazzling peaks or other ostentatious sights. Still, whoever has scanned the gentle hills of Transdanubia with their velvety colours, the vineyards trimming the slopes of volcanic mountains, has glimpsed into the mirror of Lake Balaton, or plunged into the soft silence of the Great Plain, or whoever has seen the pine forests of the Bükk mountains and roamed the streets of Buda and Pesthas involuntarily succumbed to the charm of these districts. My homeland is infinite in time too. The history of Hungarysimilarly to that of any other countrycan be summarized in a few words. A thousand years ago, with the last wave of the Migration of the Peoples, our marauding pagan ancestors came to this area. They settled here, became converted to Christianity, and then