In 1935, the first Russian translations of his poems were published. During the 1930s, Cälil also translated to the Tatar language writings of poets of the USSR peoples, such as Shota Rustaveli, Taras Shevchenko, Pushkin, Nekrasov, Mayakovsky and Lebedev-Kumach. In the late 1930s, he tended to write epic poems, such as "The Director and the Sun" (1935), "Cihan" (1935–1938), and "The Postman" (1938). As a playwright of the Tatar State Opera, he wrote four librettos for Tatar operas, one of which is "Altınçäç" ("Golden Hair Maiden") of Näcip Cihanov. In 1939 and 1940, he served as the chairman of the Tatar ASSR Union of Writers.