Bertha Sophie Felicitas Freifrau von Suttner was born in Prague, then in the kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Austrian Empire. Her father was from an aristocratic family, and her mother was of an untitled nobility, so Bertha was not considered part of the Austrian high nobility because of her “mixed” descent.
Soon after she was born, her father died, and she and her mother moved to Brno to live with her maternal family. There, Bertha was introduced to literature and philosophy by her cousin Elvira. She also studied French, Italian, and English and became an accomplished pianist and singer.
In 1856, after her mother gambled all their money, they moved to Vienna for a few years before relocating to Klosterneuburg, where Bertha published her first work, the novella Erdenträume im Monde.
Due to their financial situation, Bertha tried to become an opera singer and took intensive vocal lessons. However, her stage fright impacted her performance, and she couldn’t secure a job.
In 1873, at 30, Bertha began to work as the governess of the four girls of the von Suttner family. She and the girls had a close connection, and later she used the nickname they gave her, “Boulotte” (fatty), as her pseudonym B. Oulot. During that time, she developed a romantic relationship with the girl’s elder brother, Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner.
In 1876, encouraged by her employers, who opposed her relationship with their son, Bertha applied and accepted a position as Alfred Nobel’s secretary-housekeeper at his Paris residence. After only one week, she returned to Vienna to secretly marry von Suttner.
They eloped to Georgia and settled in Kutaisi, where they lived in poverty and worked as music and language teachers to the children of the local aristocracy. To supplement their income, both worked as writers, he covered the Russo-Turkish War, and Bertha contributed to the Austrian press and began working on her first novel, Es Löwos, published in 1906.
In 1882, the couple moved to Tbilisi, where Bertha focused on her writing. The following year, she published her first significant political work, Inventarium einer Seele (Inventory of the Soul), claiming that world peace is inevitable because of technological advancement.
In 1885, at 42, the Suttners returned to Austria, living in Harmannsdorf Castle in Burgschleinitz-Kühnring. For the next few years, she continued to work mainly as a journalist, writing primarily about peace and war issues.
In 1889, Bertha published the pacifist novel Die Waffen nieder! (Lay Down Your Arms!). The book was translated into 12 languages and published in 37 editions, making her a leading figure in the peace movement. She used her rising status to promote pacifist ideas by any means possible. Among her many actions, she founded and chaired the German Peace Society, established the international pacifist journal Die Waffen nieder!, helped to fund the establishment of the Bern Peace Bureau, presented Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria a petition to establish an International Court of Justice, and participated in the First Hague Convention in 1899. To support herself financially, she continued to write novels in which she incorporated her pacifistic ideas.
In 1904, 61 years Bertha embarked on a seven months tour across the US to promote universal peace and to attend the International Peace Congress in Boston. Her main argument was that the right to peace needs to be enshrined in international law, as it is an evolutionary necessity.
In 1905, Bertha and her comrade Tobias Asser were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their contribution to developing an international order based on peace rather than war. She became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the second female Nobel laureate (after Marie Curie), and the first Austrian laureate.
She continued to campaign for international peace and against armament, and in 1911, at 68, Bertha was appointed a member of the advisory council of the Carnegie Peace Foundation. During the last months of her life, she worked on organizing the next Peace Conference, intended to take place in September 1914.
She died of cancer in June of that year at 71. The conference was canceled; ironically, a week after it was supposed to take place, the heir to the Austria-Hungary throne, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated, an event that triggered WWI.
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