The approaches urged researchers in the early 1990s to overcome the ideological barriers in the interpretation of collaboration problem. However; the problem of collaboration remains the most politicized topic in Russian historical science, taking into account the necessity to build a positive image of the state history and influence of the Soviet inheritance, in which collaboration was interpreted as a movement based solely on ideological thoughts. For a quite long time the Russian authorities tried to conceal the problem of collaboration of Soviet citizens with the Nazis during World War II since it did not,fit into created victorious realities by the authority during war time. Therefore, vague nature of the concept of historiography and active interest of Russian society complicated the reconsideration of collaboration problem even more. The interpretation of collaboration became a major problem of Russian public policy of memory. The object of the article is to describe the most important trends of scientific interpretation problem of collaboration in contemporary Russian historiography and determine the impact of Russian public policy of memory on the process of its creation. Modern historical researches devoted to the problem of collaboration include a research experience of Soviet historical science and modern approaches of Western historiography. The interaction of such contradictory factors influenced the development of historical investigation, provoked debates among Russian scientists that escalated even more since they were socially important and under a direct control of the government. Memorial law, including direction and content of researches on World War II, established the boundaries of scientific knowledge of the problems of collaboration and school narrative represented its expectations. Collaboration in Russian textbooks is depicted as a universal trend of the military times. Interpreting the collaboration issue the authors of Russian textbooks focused on the scale of exploitation of people and robbing material resources in the occupied territories, denying any neutral motives of cooperation of Soviet citizens with the enemy though. The definition of "collaboration" caused a fierce discussion in modern Russian historiography; since quite many professional historians emotionally perceived practice of contacting Soviet citizens with the Nazis. The historians used a term with a less negative meaning than 'treason' and called it French term 'collaboration'. Debates on definition of 'collaboration' caused application of a more complicated characteristic of collaboration motives in modern Russian historiography. Most researches tend to consider different reasons for soviet citizens' collaboration with the Nazis such as a rejection of Soviet system and active participation on the side of the enemy to simply attempt to survive in a tough condition of occupation or captivity. Changes in interpretation of collaboration motives led to the review of collaboration typology. Another new trend in research of collaboration issue was to determine the number of this phenomenon. Soviet historians did not indicate the total number of collaborators emphasizing its insignificance. Thus, the results of modern historical research by Russian historians discovered a possibility to distinguish cooperation from collaboration, applying a criterion of citizen interaction motive with the occupation regime. Therefore, the essence of cooperation is identified as a contact persons behavior that does not affect the struggle of his country with the aggressor: These actions are considered by Russian historians through a legal and moral aspect. However, the problem of treason during the Second World War in the works of Russian historians remained unclear, as unique and extraordinary conditions of military confrontation were neglected, instead they continued to research moralization and publicistics, without applying to the issues of collaboration and cooperation a principle of historicism.
