Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicitas Freifrau von Suttner (b. Prague, 9 June 1843 – d. 21 June 1914, Vienna) was a Czech-Austrian pacifist, the second female Nobel laureate (after Marie Curie in 1903) and the first Austrian woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was born at Kinský Palace in the Obecní dvůr district of Prague in the family of Franz Michael de Paula Josef Graf Kinský von Wchinitz und Tettau, who was an Austrian field marshal and married to Sophie Wilhelmine von Körner. Bertha von Suttner’s most famous book Lay down Your arms was translated into the most spoken European languages. In her childhood Bertha von Suttner studied French, Italian, English and music preparing for a career in opera. In 1873, she moved to Vienna to take care of the four daughters of the Suttner household, there she met her future husband. She fell in love with Suttner’s son, who was seven years younger. The Suttner family disapproved this relation and they were unable to marry. Bertha von Suttner went to Paris and started work as the secretary and housekeeper to Alfred Nobel. Soon he fell in love with her, but she was committed to Arthur Suttner, returned to Vienna and got married in secrecy in the church of St. Aegyd in Gumpendrof. Arthur Suttner’s parents disapproved of the marriage and disinherited him. The newlywed couplemoved to Georgia in the Samegerelo region, where they were hosted by Prince Niko and Queen of Mengrelia Ekaterine Dadiani, befriended in 1864, when she spent the summer at Bad Homburg. The couple spent five years in Samegrelo, working together with their friend, Belgian historian and researcher Jean Mourier, on translating the epic poem of Shota Rustaveli The Knight in the Panther’s Skin. They spent a couple of years in Kutaisi, Georgia, where they taught languages and music to the local aristocracy children and in 1882 they moved to Tbilisi and then again back to Samegrelo until 1885. In 1885 they finally returned to Austria.
In 1883, she published her first significant political work, Inventarium einer Seele, which is a pro-disarmament, promoting technological advance for world peace. In 1906, she was awarded the Nobel peace Price on account of for her work on a peaceful international order, against war.
More in Wikipedia.
Address: GVHG+M4R, Bertha von Suttner street, Zugdidi, Georgia.