When legacies die: how crises disrupt the reproduction of historical legacies

This paper examines how historical legacies can fade in response to contemporary crises, focusing on the Ottoman legacy of corruption in Romania’s healthcare sector and its attenuation following the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that while historical legacies often persist due to cultural and institutional reproduction, they remain vulnerable to dramatic changes triggered by exogenous shocks. Using historical data on Ottoman rule duration and contemporary corruption measures from Romania’s Patient Feedback Mechanism, we first establish a robust relationship between longer Ottoman exposure and higher corruption levels in healthcare. We then examine changes following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020. Our results show a significant reduction in the impact of Ottoman rule on corruption levels post-pandemic. These findings are corroborated by European Quality of Government Index surveys from 2021 and 2024, which demonstrate a disappearance of Ottoman-driven corruption differences over time. The paper contributes to the literature on historical persistence by illuminating the conditions under which entrenched patterns can be disrupted, highlighting the potential for crises to erode even deeply rooted historical legacies.