War of the Buttons

So it has been since time immemorial: every 12-year-old resident of Longuevern simply can’t stand the inhabitants of Vellrans. And every vellranger, as soon as they’ve learned the alphabet, hates the people of Longuevern. Whoever, in class, doesn’t tremble with impatience—to run away and teach the enemies a good lesson—is a coward and a traitor. Everyone trembles with impatience, in both villages, and rushes after classes to the next fight—well, how else could he become the deciding one?

There’s no war without trophies: the boys celebrate triumph by cutting the enemy’s buttons and clasps off their clothes so the enemy has to trudge to their parents’ well-deserved spanking with his pants still on. The “Button War” went on for years unchanged until, one day, the leader of the people of Longuevern came up with a way to fight au naturel—then you’ll avoid shame and your father’s belt. Who knew that this trick would turn the long-running conflict into a battle that was absolutely not for children…

Louis Perrault knew a thing or two about boys’ psychology: he wrote the book inspired by his teaching experience. At 28, Louis Perrault won the Goncourt Prize, beating such giants as Guillaume Apollinaire and Colette. And at 33, he died in the First World War. “The Button War” was published in France in 1912, and it seems as if a message is encoded in it: when hatred doesn’t subside, it grows—and the smallest stupidity can destroy a fragile world.

Adapted for the screen five times and famous thanks to his fame as the “Grandfather of The Fly-Men,” the novel appears in Russian for the first time. This became possible thanks to two masters—Mikhail Yasnov and Maria Brusovani. They managed to preserve the audacious style of the classic and go beyond the bounds of a historical novel. The edition is illustrated by Vadim Chelak and accompanied by a preface and comments by Mikhail Yasnov.