2000 Forint István Széchenyi

Széchenyi István — reformer, Anglophile, and the man Kossuth called "the greatest Hungarian" — founded the Magyar Tudományos Akadémia in 1825 after pledging a full year's income from his estates on the spot, a gesture that shamed other nobles into contributing. The Academy remained unbuilt for decades due to funding shortfalls and Habsburg obstruction before finally opening in 1865, fourteen years after Széchenyi's death in the Döbling asylum.

This commemorative was issued as part of a long-running MNB series revisiting major national figures. The Adamo EM326 reference places it firmly in the collector-oriented non-circulating emission program.