Hungarians sometimes get that look when a word, a taste, a melody transports them thousands of miles away, into the past. You ask a second or a third-generation Hungarian and he looks wistful: "I've never been but some day I would like to go to Hungary..." This special year, the year 2000, Hungary is celebrating her 1000th year of statehood-the kingdom was born on Christmas Day, 1000 A.D.-with a yearful of festivities. The entire country is extending an invitation to all Hungarians living abroad, their families and friends to come to Hungary and join her in the celebrations. Go discover or rediscover your homeland, your roots, and the roots of your friends or those of famous Americans of Hungarian ancestry. Get to know the ancient land of your forefathers, see its vibrant new life, relive memories and gain a lifetime's worth of new ones.

EMIGRATION

Even if you are not Hungarian, chances are that you are related to or know someone who is. An estimated five million people, who consider themselves Hungarian, live outside the country, close to two million in the United States and Canada, where another two or three million live who are descendants of Hungarians. For more than a hundred years Hungarians streamed out into the world, drawn by ambitions, pushed by wars, political persecution and economic disasters. They left in waves: in the late 1800s soldiers of the war for Independence of 1848, at the turn of the century, poor villagers hoping to find a better way of life found land or factory work in North America. In the thirties, artists and intellectuals escaped from the threat of fascism; after 1945, refugees from the Soviet occupied Hungary became "displaced persons". In 1956, more than 200,000 Hungarian freedom fighters fled the country after Soviet troops crushed the Revolution. To which of these emigrants are you related? We can help you find out.