Bertha von Suttner

Bertha von Suttner
Bertha von Suttner c. 1906
Born	(1843-06-09)9 June 1843 Prague, Bohemia, Austrian Empire
Died	21 June 1914(1914-06-21) (aged 71) Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Occupation	Pacifist, novelist
Awards	Nobel Peace Prize, 1905

Bertha Felicitas Sophie Freifrau von Suttner (Baroness Bertha von Suttner, née Countess Kinsky, Gräfin Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau; 9 June 1843 – 21 June 1914) was a Czech-Austrian pacifist and novelist. In 1905 she was the first woman to be solely awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the second female Nobel laureate after Marie Curie's 1903 award, and the first Austrian laureate.

Suttner was born on 9 June 1843 at Palais Kinsky in the Obecní dvůr district of Prague. Her parents were the Austrian Lieutenant general (Feldmarschall-Leutnant) Franz de Paula Josef Graf Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau, recently deceased at the age of 75, and his wife Sophie Wilhelmine von Körner, who was fifty years his junior. Her father was a member of the House of Kinsky via descent from Vilém Kinský. Suttner's mother came from a family that belonged to untitled nobility of significantly lower status, being the daughter of Joseph von Körner, a cavalry officer, and a distant relative of the poet Theodor Körner. For the rest of her life, Suttner faced exclusion from the Austrian high aristocracy due to her mixed descent; for instance only those with unblemished aristocratic pedigree back to their great-great-grandparents were eligible to be presented at court. She was additionally disadvantaged because her father, as a third son, had no great estates or other financial resources to be inherited. Suttner was baptised at the Church of Our Lady of the Snows, not a traditional choice for the aristocracy.

Soon after her birth, Suttner's mother moved to live in Brno with her guardian Landgrave Friedrich Michael zu Fürstenberg (1793-1866). Her older brother Arthur was sent to a military school, at the age of six, and subsequently had little contact with the family. In 1855 Suttner's aunt Loffe and cousin Elvira joined the household. Elvira, whose father was a private tutor, was of a similar age to Suttner and intellectually precocious, introducing Suttner to the pleasures of literature and philosophy. Beyond her reading, Suttner gained proficiency in French, Italian and English as an adolescent, under the supervision of a succession of private tutors; she also became an accomplished amateur pianist and singer.