Semyonov is historian of the Russian Empire/USSR and post-Soviet space. He received his Ph. D. from the Central European University (Budapest/Vienna). Before coming to Amherst Semyonov was a Professor of History, the founding chair of the Department of History, and the Director of the Center for Historical Research at the HSE (Higher School of Economics) University in St. Petersburg. He also taught at the University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Central European University, University of Regensburg, University of Turin, Jyvaskyla University, and Bielefeld University.
His research interests include political and intellectual history, history of empire and nationalism. Her recently engaged in developing a dialogue between the field of Global History and New Imperial History on questions of nested political imaginaries of the world and diversity. Semyonov published on intellectual and political history of Russian liberalism and liberal imperialism, history of political reforms, revolutions, and the first Russian parliament in the early twentieth century, history of the World War I, history of Russian social sciences and their global entanglements.
Since 2000 Semyonov has been a co-founding member of the editorial board of Ab Imperio: Studies of New Imperial and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Space. Together with Ronald Suny he co-edits the Routledge book series “Imperial Transformations: Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet History.” Most recently, he has co-directed a European funded research consortium "Post-Imperial Diversities: Majority-Minority Relations in the Transition from Empires to Nation-states."
He is also a member of the academic board of the International Doctoral Program “Global History of Empires”