Bertha von Suttner

Bertha von Suttner

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Bertha Felicitas Sophie Freifrau von Suttner (Baroness Bertha von Suttner), born 9 June 1843 in Prague (now Czech Republic) as Gräfin (Countess) Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau, died 21 June 1914 in Vienna (Austria), was an Austrian novelist, pacifist and the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in 1905. It was 26 years before another woman received this honor. Her literary career began after her marriage to Arthur Gundaccar Freiherr von Suttner in 1876. She had served the Suttner family as governess from 1873. Following several critically acclaimed books denouncing war, calling for disarmament and universal peace, it was her 1889 book, Die Waffen nieder! (Ground Arms) that earned her international acclaim. In 1891, she helped to launch the Austrian Peace Society and attended the Third International Peace Congress in Rome. From 1892, she began to regularly update Alfred Nobel on the progress of the peace movement. After 1899, when the Hague Peace Conference met, she strongly supported the Permanent Court of Arbitration founded by the conference. Already anticipating war between Germany and Great Britain, she formed the Anglo-German Friendship Committee in 1905.

At the London Peace Congress of 1907 she spoke about how European unity would end war, anticipating the agenda of the architects of the post World War II European space. From 1905 until her death she was Vice-President of the International Peace Bureau in Geneva, having served as a permanent director since 1892. Suttner was critical of imperialism and argued that progress and the end of war as a means of resolving disputes would result in a more unified world. She believed war to be barbaric, immoral, that it hinders humanity's progress and violates individual rights. Happiness, she taught, is best created and developed in peace, while the individual's right to live is universal and trumps the right of nations to pursue self-interest. Her hope was that the human instinct to survive would, in the end, consign war to history. Her criticism of the international order was that when nations meet to talk about war, it is only to restrict war or to modify it rather than to end it; they did not contemplate banishing all thought of war, or ending the means to wage war. The issue for her was whether violence or law would prevail between states. Ending war for "Peace Bertha" meant ending all war, not only armed conflict but class war, gender war and rivalry between religions.

Biography

Suttner was the posthumous daughter of an impoverished Austrian Field Marshal, Franz-Josef Graf Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau (October 12 1768–January 4 1843) and his wife, Sophie von Körner, a descendant of the German poet Theodor Körner. She had an older brother, Arthur Franz Graf Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau (April 17 1837–May 29 1906), who died unmarried and childless. She was raised by her mother and by a guardian. She was education educated at home by private tutors. Raised in a military family, she accepted the values associated with military traditions "without question for the first half of her life." In her novel, Ground arms!" The story of a life her heroine marries an army officer at age eighteen. Suttner enjoyed an active social life, attending "dances, parties" wearing "beautiful gowns" even as "battles were raging around various parts of Europe", later commenting that "wars were considered glorious, battles were the high points of men's lives and young soldiers basked in the admiration of young women."

In 1873, she became governess to the Suttner family. Until then, she had lived off her father's legacy but this was dwindling and she needed to supplement her income. When she became engaged to Baron von Suttner's son, the engineer and novelist Arthur Gundaccar Freiherr von Suttner in 1876, they objected, presumably because of the age gap and lack of a dowry. She was seven years older than Arthur and her mother had a reputation as a gambler having frittered away most of the family's inheritance.

Marriage and Literary Debut

Answering an advertisement from Alfred Nobel in 1876 at the suggestion of Baroness Suttner to become Nobel's secretary-housekeeper at his Paris residence, she traveled to Paris and secured the job. Abrams hints that Nobel, who was "charmed by the beautiful countess" may have entertained "thoughts of a more exalted position for Bertha that would end his loneliness." However, while he was on a business trip to Sweden about a week after her arrival in Paris, she received a telegram from Arthur imploring her to return to Vienna, since he could not live without her. In order to make the journey, she sold a valuable diamond. Returning to to Vienna, she secretly married von Suttner on June 12 1876 but maintained correspondence with Nobel until his death.

The couple spent the next none years in Russia. The Baroness taught languages and music and began her own literary career as a novelist and poet. Following the successful publication of several novels, she wrote Inventarium einer Seele (Inventory of a Soul) in 1883, a serious work setting out her developing ideas about peace, human progress and the future of civilization. Influenced by evolutionary thought, especially by the social evolutionary ideas of Herbert Spenser she argued that war hinders progress, while peace promotes this. Arthur fully shared her ideals. By 1885, the Suttner's were able to return to Vienna where the senior Suttners had by then accepted Bertha's and Arthur's marriage.

Leadership of the Peace Movement

Husband and wife continued to promote their ideals through their writing. In 1888, through a friend, they heard about the pragmatic agenda of the International Arbitration and Peace Association, founded in London in 1880 which aimed to persuade nations to renounce violence in favor of arbitration to resolve disputes. This gave a specific focus to their writing, and eventually led to Bertha's active involvement in the peace movement. Initially, she thought that her best contribution would still be literary and started her second serious work, Das Maschinenzeitalter (The Age of Machines) published in 1889. The book was originally published under a pen-name, "Jemand" (Anyone) because she feared that a book about science by a woman might not be taken seriously. In this work, she argues that disarmament and peace represented the pinnacle of human progress. War retarded progress and was the opposite of progress because it killed the fittest and allowed the least fit to survive. Instead of advancing, society degenerates. In the future, she said, as technological capability advanced, fed by aggressive policies and imperial ambition, machines would be invented that could wipe out whole armies. She critiqued nationalism as too often the enemy of peace because it encourages hatred, envy of or ideas of superiority over other races. However, it was her next book, Die Waffen nieder [Ground Arms!) published later the same year that instantly transformed her into a celebrity and an active player in the evolving peace movement. Drawing on her life experience and on extensive research into the wars of her time, her heroine grew to hate war as she experienced its horrors. The realistic representation of her subject earned critical acclaim; the book's impact on the German speaking public has been widely compared with that of Harriet Beacher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin within the English-speaking context. Leo Tolstoy suggested that the book would "lead to the abolition of war as Stowe's had to the abolition of slavery.</ref> In Austria, government ministers commended t the book.</ref>Abbott, page 6.</ref>

Invitations to speak at peace conferences and to serve on their committees now followed. In 1891, she founded the Austrian Peace Society and spoke at the International Peace Conference in Rome. In 1892, she was appointed a permanent director of the International Peace Bureau, Geneva becoming Vice-President in 1905. From then until her death, she attended almost every major peace congress, wrote, traveled and lectures. In 1892, she co-founded the journal, Die Waffen Nieder, which she edited until 1899 when it was replaced by the Friedenswarte (edited by her fried, A. H. Fried). Her ongoing correspondence with Nobel now focused on the peace movement. From 1893, Nobel began plans for a Peace Prize.

It was her role behind the scenes at the Hague Peace Conference of 1899 that met with some practical outcome in the form of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. As an official observer at the Conference, she was the only woman present at the opening ceremony. Again, Arthur was at her side assisting her in her efforts to persuade delegates to commit to the arbitration process. When Arthur died in 1902, although "grief-stricken ... she determined to carry on the work which they had so often done together and which he had asked her to continue." When she experienced a financial crises shortly after Arthur's death and was compelled to sell the Suttner's ancestral home, peace activists around the world contributed to a fund which was presented to her as a 60th birthday testimonial.

Visit to the USA

In 1904, Suttner visited the USA for the first time on a speaking tour, meeting Theodore Roosevelt, whom she admired, in the White House on October 17th. She visited many Quaker communities, which she saw as important examples of a life-style expressing a worldview devoted to peace. She addressed the National Education Association and a suffragist convention.

Anglo-German Friendship

Even more lecturing and writing followed. In 1904 she attended

Though her personal contact with Alfred Nobel had been brief, she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and it is believed that she was a major influence in his decision to include a peace prize among those prizes provided in his will, which she won in 1905.

The film Die Waffen nieder by Holger Madsen and Carl Theodor Dreyer was made by Nordisk Films Kompagni in 1914. She is depicted on the Austrian 2 euro coin, and was pictured on the old Austrian 1000 schilling bank note.

Peace Prize

"Chairman Lövland, now foreign minister, spoke at the banquet about the great influence of women in history and how they could change the ideas of war and give men higher aims."

File:2008 taler back.jpg

2008 Europe Taler

Philosophy

Suttner argued that every war is a fratricidal war of "civilized man against civilized man." History itself is manipulated to delude "impressionable childish minds" that war is ordained by God and that to die for your country is the greatest honor. In

In 1894 one of her many articles urged that physical differences should not occasion ethical differences. After all, she observed, the racecourse mare does the same task as the horse; the bitch in the hound pack hunts as the dog does. Man and woman are born equal, and should have equal rights. (Yes, indeed. How do things look these days, a hundred years on?)

Legacy

Bertha von Suttner Monument in Wagga Wagga, Australia

Bertha von Suttner was recently selected as a main motif for a high value collectors' coin: the 2008 Europe Taler. The reverse shows important people in the history of Europe, including Bertha von Suttner. Also depicted in the coin are Martin Luther (symbolizing the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern period); Antonio Vivaldi (exemplifying the importance of European cultural life); and James Watt (representing the industrialization of Europe, inventor of the first steam engine in the 18th century).

Her papers are part of the Peace Collection at Swarthmore College, PA. 2005 was declared the Bertha von Suttner Commemorative Year by the International Peace Bureau. There is a monument to her memory in the Rotary Peace Park in Wagga Wagga, Australia. The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (founded 1915) honored her memory by placing her portrait "as the frontispiece of their published minutes."

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Abrams, Irwin. 2001. The Nobel Peace Prize and the laureates: an illustrated biographical history, 1901-2001. Nantucket, MA: Science History Publications/USA. ISBN 9780881353884.
• Braker, Regina. 1995. Weapons of women writers: Bertha von Suttner's Die Waffen nieder! as political literature in the tradition of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's cabin. Austrian culture, v. 16. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 9780820426266.
• Hamann, Brigitte. 1996. Bertha von Suttner: a life for peace. Syracuse studies on peace and conflict resolution. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815603870.
• Kempf, Beatrix. 1973. Woman for peace; the life of Bertha von Suttner. Park Ridge, N.J.: Noyes Press. ISBN 9780815550136.
• Lengyel, Emil. 1975. And all her paths were peace: the life of Bertha von Suttner. Nashville: T. Nelson. ISBN 9780840764508. (Juvenile audience)
• McDonald, Lynn. 1998. Women theorists on society and politics. Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 9780889202900
• Malo, Eve. 2006. Dynamite women: the ten women Nobel Peace Laureates of the 20th century. New York: Vantage Press. ISBN 9780533152254.
• Pierson, Ruth Roach. 1987. Women and peace: theoretical, historical, and practical perspectives. London: Croom Helm. ISBN 9780709940685.
• Stiehm, Judith. 2006. Champions for peace: women winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742540255 .
• Suttner, Bertha von, and Alice Asbury Abbott. 1892. "Ground arms!" The story of a life. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co. OCLC 4929337
• Suttner, Bertha von. 1904. Inventarium einer Seele. Dresden: E. Pierson. {OCLC|37446138}}
• Suttner, Bertha von. 1972. Memoirs of Bertha von Suttner; the records of an eventful life. The Garland library of war and peace. New York: Garland Pub. ISBN 9780824003173.
• Suttner, Bertha von. 1972. Lay down your arms; the autobiography of Martha von Tilling. The Garland library of war and peace. New York: Garland Pub. ISBN 9780824003180.
• Suttner, Bertha von, and Caroline E. Playne. 1910. The age of machines. [London]: Women's International League. OCLC 36624657
• Suttner, Bertha von, Klaus Mannhardt, and Winfried Schwamborn. 1978. Die Waffen nieder!: ausgew. Texte. Köln: Pahl-Rugenstein. ISBN 9783760903569
• Suttner, Bertha von. 1983. Das Maschinenzeitalter. Zwiebelzwerg-Reprint. Düsseldorf: Zwiebelzwerg Co. ISBN 9783922436171.

External links

• Nobel Entry
• More Info from Nobel Winners
• Another biography on Bertha von Suttner
• 2005 — the Bertha von Suttner Year

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