Acknowledgements

I would like to express my personal gratitude to Ambassador Robert Hage, Canadian Ambassador to Hungary, who took a leap of faith in seeing the value of this project from its inception. Thanks are also due to Agnes Pust and the embassy staff in Budapest who were a constant source of encouragement and assistance over these past months. I would also like to acknowledge the support of Ildikó Takács and Todd Cowan, and through them the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hungary and TriGranit Development Corporation. Thanks also for the generous support of the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Hungary and the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture. Without these institutions and organizations, this publication would not have been possible.

Thanks also goes to Nathalie Bibeau of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), who was instrumental in the early stages of the project. Sandra Piccone-Szirmay, György Schöpflin, Michel Chauvin, Yvon Turcotte, Yvette Farkas and Rose Dancs also helped get the word out in Canada when we were looking for candidates.

I wish to acknowledge a host of people for their help and support at different stages including Peter Freed, László Kúnos, Jura Nanuk, Judy Young, Linda Kúnos, Uwe Zimmermann, René le Clere, Gábor Izbéki, Nóra Lakos, Susan Papp-Aykler, Gyula Zombori, Ernst Wastl, Eleni Korani, Tamás Galambos, Maria Mailath, Maria Valachi, Marsha Siefert, Tamás Külkey, Cherise Barsell, István Rév, Anna Kutor and
Esther Robitaille.

I would also like to thank the candidates who took part in the interview process but for various reasons do not appear in this edition: Miklós and György Andrádi, Andy Réti, Éva Kovács, Ervin Kulcsár, Jim A. Lassu and Miklós Janitsary.

To all of the individuals who were interviewed, I know it was not always easy to recall these often-painful times, we owe you a debt of gratitude.

Also please have a look at the masthead, where you will find the names of the creative team of freelancers that worked hard to make the text as clean and crisp as possible. I humbly thank them.

Lastly thank you to my parents whom I love so very much for their love, encouragement, support and care. They helped me to tell our story.