The President of the Academy spoke about models for transforming agriculture

Good examples are not always followed, which is precisely why it is necessary to popularize them. The President of the Romanian Academy, Ioan-Aurel Pop, highlighted the importance of creating the Royal Domains, true "model centers for transforming agriculture into a great stimulus for economic growth". Ioan-Aurel Pop spoke at an event dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the creation of the Crown Domains by King Carol I, held at the "Ion Heliade Rădulescu" Amphitheatre of the Romanian Academy Library: "From the money obtained, the Royal House financed schools, theaters, village libraries, books and brochures, through the mediation of adjacent foundations. From its establishment, for a long period of time, until 1913, the position of administrator of the Crown Domains was held by a great Romanian jurist and forester, Ioan Kalinderu. Let us also remember him, his role. Although it could have remained just a vineyard of the Royal House, the Segarcea Domain functioned for over two decades as a, I quote, vine school, a nursery for the cultivation and saving of noble grape varieties, especially after a new phylloxera epidemic had destroyed almost two thirds of Europe's vineyards". He recalled the establishment, in 1906, of a "model winery, a jewel that combined the most advanced technologies of the time both in the building construction sector and in the winemaking sector, by using the force of gravity to obtain the highest quality wine", reviewing the winery's achievements, up to the international recognition received by the wines from Segarcea, in 1936, at the Paris Wine Competition, which was a kind of prologue to the 1937 Universal Exhibition. The President of the Academy also spoke about the "misfortune of 1947 - 1948", when the Crown Domains, like many other institutions, were nationalized by the communists:

"After the abdication of the King (Mihai I n.r.) and the forced abolition of the Monarchy, the Crown Domains were, as they said then, "nationalized' by the communists, that is, they were confiscated, through an abusive law. Then the Romanian Academy, the old Academy, was also abolished, and a new Academy was established, without over 100 people, excluded as bourgeois and enemies of the people. Most of the vineyards, after the event, such as those from Periş, Ruşeţu, Domniţa, collapsed permanently. The winery from Segarcea survived, reorganized according to communist models and methods, until the early 1980s. After 1990, the domain was reborn like the Phoenix Bird from its own ashes". During the event, an extensive tour of the history of the Royal Domains was presented by the general director of the Romanian Academy Library, Nicolae Noica, honorary member of the Romanian Academy, while the general director of the Peleş National Museum in Sinaia, Narcis Dorin Ion, praised the personality of Ion Kalinderu.