Upon his graduation from the School of Asian and African Studies of Moscow State University in 1980, Sergey Volkov was admitted to the school of graduate studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of Soviet Academy of Sciences. Following early completion and defense of his master's thesis, he was offered a position in that institute (March, 1982). In December of 1989, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation. From 1990, the author worked for a number of non-governmental organizations: as the chairman for promotion of classic cultural heritage at the Cultural Heritage Foundation, as the director of Fine Letters and Philosophy Society named after Dostoevsky, and as the editor of Russian Review magazine. In 1993-94, he held the position of professor and deputy chancellor for academics in Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. In 1996-2002, he was the lead researcher at the School of Asian and African Studies of Moscow State University and the lead researcher at the Institute of Russian History at Russian State University for Humanities, and also taught at the Institute for Applied Oriental Studies, the Military Academy, and Sretenye (Candlemas) Seminary. In 2002-2010, he worked as the lead researcher and section chief in the research division of Russian State Library. From 2002 to January 2015, he held a professor's chair in St. Tikhon's University for Humanities of Russian Orthodox church, and in 2015 he became director for research at Biographical Studies Institute of Russian Endowment for Education and Science.