Abstract: Studying the phenomenon of collaboration in times of military conflicts in any country is a difficult and painful process. It becomes difficult to consider this problem objectively, since the topic is often in the field of political regulation and propaganda manipulation. This is especially clearly seen by the example of studying the domestic historiography of the issue: this article presents an overview of the literature of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, including research works by modern historians and foreign authors, which highlight the issues of voluntary cooperation of Soviet citizens with the Nazi occupation authorities. The main directions of studying the designated problem are described and considered step by step: the purpose of the article is to analyze the difference in approaches to the study of the phenomenon of collaboration and identify new trends in this issue. The author's special contribution to the study of the historiography of the issue of Soviet collaboration was the introduction and analysis of foreign-language literature that has no translation into Russian. Taking into account a fundamentally different view of the features of voluntary cooperation of citizens of the USSR with the German occupiers of foreign authors, it can be stated that familiarity with concepts alien to the Soviet tradition helps to expand the research horizons and narrative space of scientists dealing with this issue, to see all the diversity of the issue. It was also possible to draw parallels between the scientific conclusions to the study of the topic not only by foreign and domestic authors, but also between historians of the past and the present: this approach allows you to place historical accents and get closer to an objective consideration of the phenomenon of collaboration.