Mari language
In 1905 he wrote the first literary poem in the Mari language, "Oto" (Ото – The Grove). In 1908 he graduated from Kazan Teachers' Seminary. His first play was "The Wild Duck" in 1912, a satire of Tsarist bureaucrats. After the October Revolution, Chavain wrote several plays for the first Mari mobile theatre, such as "The Autonomy" (1920) and "The Sun Rises, the Storm-clouds Disappear" (1921), inspired by the Revolution and Civil War.