Bertha von Suttner

Bertha Sophie Felicitas Freifrau von Suttner (ˈbɛʁtaː fɔn ˈzʊtnɐ; ; 9 June 1843 - 21 June 1914) was an Austrian-Bohemian pacifist and novelist. In 1905, she became the second female Nobel laureate (after Marie Curie in 1903), the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first Austrian laureate. Bertha Kinský was born on 9 June 1843 at Kinský Palace in the Obecní dvůr (cz) district of Prague. Her parents were the Austrian Lieutenant general (Feldmarschall-Leutnant) Franz Michael de Paula Josef Graf Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau (1769-1843), recently deceased at the age of 75, and his young wife Sophie Wilhelmine von Körner (1815-1884), who was almost fifty years his junior. Her father was a member of the illustrious House of Kinsky via descent from Count Wilhelm Kinsky (1574-1634), being younger son of Count Franz Ferdinand Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau (1738-1806) and his wife, Princess Maria Christina Anna von und zu Liechtenstein (1741-1819), daughter of Prince Emanuel of Liechtenstein. Bertha's mother came from a family that belonged to untitled nobility of significantly lower status, being the daughter of her husband's comrade, Joseph von Körner (a captain of the cavalry in the Imperial Army), a distant relative of the poet Theodor Körner. Through her mother, Bertha was also related to Theodor Körner, Edler von Siegringen, namesake and great-nephew of the poet, who later served as the 4th President of Austria. For the rest of her life, Bertha faced exclusion from the Austrian high nobility due to her "mixed" descent; for instance, only those with an unblemished aristocratic pedigree back to their great-great-grandparents were eligible for presentation at the imperial court. She was additionally disadvantaged because her father, as a third son, had no great estates or other financial resources to bequeath. Bertha was baptised at Prague's Church of Our Lady of the Snows – not a traditional choice for the aristocracy. Soon after her birth, Bertha's mother moved to live in Brno near Bertha's guardian, Landgrave Friedrich Michael zu Fürstenberg-Taikowitz (1793–1866).