Bertha von Suttner

Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicitas von Suttner, born Countess Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau, was an Austrian noblewoman, pacifist, and novelist. In 1905, she became the second female Nobel laureate, the first woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first Austrian to win any Nobel. She was born in Prague at the Kinský Palace, the posthumous daughter of an Austrian lieutenant general from the ancient House of Kinsky and a mother from a lower, untitled nobility. Because of this mixed descent, Bertha was excluded from the Austrian high aristocracy, which required an unblemished pedigree. Her father, a third son, left no great estates. After her birth, her mother moved to Brno near Bertha’s guardian. Her older brother was sent to military school at age six. In 1855, her maternal aunt and cousin Elvira joined the household; Elvira introduced Bertha to literature and philosophy. Bertha became proficient in French, Italian, and English, and was an accomplished pianist and singer. Her mother and aunt, claiming clairvoyance, gambled at Wiesbaden in 1856 and 1859, losing heavily and forcing moves to Vienna and then a small property in Klosterneuburg. Bertha published her first novella, *Erdenträume im Monde*, in *Die Deutsche Frau*. She briefly engaged a wealthy banker 31 years her senior but rejected him. In 1864, she befriended a Georgian princess and met Tsar Alexander II. Seeking an opera career, she studied intensively with eminent teachers in Paris and Baden-Baden but never secured professional work due to stage fright. In 1873, she became a tutor in the household of Karl Gundaccar Freiherr von Suttner in Vienna and at Schloss Harmannsdorf.