The Harvard Project's Interviews as a Source on the History of the Captivity and Collaborationism of Soviet Prisoners of War During The Second World War

The Second World War is a key event in the history of the 20th century that still has a special place in the historical memory in Russia and other European countries. Therefore, it has been one of the most studied subject since the end of the war. Over the recent decades, scholars have started to extensively examine the Second World War within the framework of social history. Personal testimonies are of extreme value for researchers of this subdiscipline. Therefore, the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System is a unique source which provides scholars with numerous personal testimonies about captivity, the relationships between the civilian population of the occupied territories and Soviet POWs and treatment of Soviet POWs of various nationalities by Germans. This source also gives an information about the causes and nature of the collaborationism of Soviet POWs during the Second World War. However, the information potential of the HPSSS has not yet been fully examined by historians of the Nazi occupation, captivity and collaborationism. In this regard, the primary aim of the proposed study is to investigate the significance of the Harvard Project interviews as a historical source for researches on the history of the captivity and collaborationism of Soviet prisoners of war during the Second World War. My study showed that the interviews of the HPSSS provide us with information about captivity and collaborationism, which partly complements, but also significantly enriches the understanding of this subject in historiography.