Discussion about the Soviet collaboration: a View on the problem of domestic and foreign history researches

Abstract

Continuing to explore Soviet collaboration, the author draws attention to the evolution of scientific thought about this phenomenon, analyzing in detail the work of domestic and foreign scientists. Decade after decade, the trends formed and put forward by historians as the main directions for analyzing, describing and evaluating the phenomenon of voluntary cooperation of Soviet citizens with the German occupiers are being analyzed. Of particular importance is the accumulation of scientific research on the topic, which allows us to see the key ideas, as well as their successive changes: declaring at the beginning the parallelism of views of domestic and foreign historians in the post-war period, the author identifies the first points of contact, finds coincidences and divergences of views, follows the development of the discussion about the prerequisites, motives, forms and fate of Soviet collaborationism. When writing this article, in order to organize voluminous disparate scientific information, the author used comparative and aggregate research methods, as well as the method of historical analysis. Noting the similarities and differences in the vectors of development of scientific interests of researchers on the topic of Soviet collaboration during the Great Patriotic War, the article shows how scientifically based disputes enrich each other in Russia and abroad. A special contribution of the author was the introduction of foreign literature that had not previously been published in Russian, as well as an appeal to the works of modern researchers of related history sciences (political science, international relations), which had not previously come to the attention of Russian historians. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of scientific concepts competing with each other, the author identifies areas on the topic of Soviet collaboration that need additional attention and development for both domestic and foreign specialists.