(1843-1914)
Winner of the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize. Baroness Bertha von Suttner was born Bertha Kinsky in Prague in the Austrian Empire on June 9, 1843. Her father, Count Franz Josef Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau, died before she was born. Her mother wasted her father’s legacy at spas and casinos. Bertha became fluent in a number of languages and was known to European society but was forced to take a job as a governess to the young daughters of the Suttner family in Vienna. She fell in love with Arthur, one of the Suttner sons. The family strenuously objected to a marriage because of Bertha’s poverty. Nevertheless, she and Arthur married and withdrew for nine years to the Caucasus, where Bertha had friends. They supported themselves giving language and music lessons but spent much time studying contemporary European developments. When Arthur had success writing articles about the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, the two turned to writing. After authoring four novels, the couple moved to Vienna, where Sophie wrote four more novels dealing with social issues before turning to nonfiction. In 1883 she published Inventarium einer Seele (Inventory of a Soul), a call for peace and international cooperation. In 1886 the Suttners briefly lived in Paris.
Though her husband, who shared her ideas, lived until 1902, Suttner completely eclipsed him. In Paris she renewed an acquaintance with Alfred Nobel, whom she encouraged to establish a peace prize. She also became acquainted with the International Arbitration and Peace Association, which greatly influenced her. She wrote Machinenzeitalter (Machine Age), in which she attacked nationalism and militarism. Her novel Die Waffen nieder (Lay Down Your Arms), published in 1889, established Suttner as a leading voice of the peace movement. In 1891 she founded the Austrian Peace Society, and in 1892 she was a founding member of the Bern Peace Bureau. In 1899 she resided at The Hague during the first Hague Peace Conference and hosted a salon where she promoted her agenda for peace.
In 1905 Suttner was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She utilized the occasion to decry the barbarism of war and to call for arbitration. In subsequent lectures she advocated the unification of Europe to forestall war. For her efforts she was excoriated by German and Austrian nationalists. She died on June 21, 1914, thus sparing her the spectacle of the tragedy of World War I.
