The historical genre in modern fiction is sufficiently developed. His poetics are complex and diverse: to achieve credibility, writers refer to both historical documents and personalities, as well as to legends and folklore images. The purpose of this study was to study those works of Chuvash literature (mainly dramas) in which writers touch upon the history of the people, in particular, the era of the Volga Bulgaria and the entry of Chuvash lands into Russia. This topic in the works of writers is rather delicate, because until now Chuvash historical science has not fully solved the problem of the historical development of the people. In this regard, in any work of this nature, there are many controversial and ambiguous questions from the point of view of their reliability. As the main material for scientific analysis, the authors selected works of drama from the second half of the 20th century (T. Pederki, M. Yuriev, I. Petrova, M. Karyagina, B. Chindykov, N. Petrovsky-Tevetkel, etc.). Also, as the most successful example of the historical genre and from the point of view of the reliability of historical facts and events, K. Turhan's novel “Sviyaga falls into the Volga” is analyzed. It should be noted that many of the analyzed works gained their popularity at the end of the 20th century, during the rise of the national self-consciousness of the Chuvash people, and at the beginning of the XXI century, when the problem of preserving the national language and culture is also one of the most urgent. The main result of this study is the tendency, revealed by the authors, to attract a similar historical material for the realization of the main idea of the work – the formation or revival of the national-ethnic self-consciousness of the Chuvash people.