He graduated from Moscow State University and in 1977 obtained his Candidate of Sciences degree there for his thesis on Russian phonology.
[3][4] Zhivov was a professor at Moscow State University and received there the degree of a Doctor of Science in 1992.
Zhivov joined faculty of the University of California, Berkeley in 1995 and until his death had a double appointment: He was teaching at Berkeley half a year every year, and he spent the rest of his time in Moscow, where he was a Deputy Director of the Russian Language Institute.
[2] In 1982, Zhivov published a paper on the works of Maximus the Confessor, which is still highly cited.
Until his death, he was working on a monograph on the history of Russian language, which he almost completed.