Czech, who advised Nobel to give awards to fighters for peace

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Czech, who advised Nobel to give awards to 

fighters for peace

At the end of June, one hundred years have passed since the death of the world's first woman, who became the Nobel Peace Prize winner - Bertha von Sutner, in the nephew of Countess Kinski. Berta von Sutner lived a bright and fruitful life and only a few days did not live up to the outbreak of the First World War. She did not learn that her prediction about a new war, which would be "much worse than all the previous ones," came true, and did not see that the efforts of her whole life had collapsed like a house of cards.

The future pacifist and world-famous writer Berta Sofia Felichita Kinsky was born on June 9, 1843 in the very center of Prague, on the street In the pit. Her father, Count Frans Kinski, died shortly before the birth of his daughter, and his relatives eschewed the mother of the girl, who came from the burgher class and who was passionate about playing roulette. The mother's addiction to visiting the casino led to the fact that Berta Kinski remained a homeless girl, well educated, proficient in many languages ​​and musical talent, but still a loser. After unsuccessful attempts to marry, the girl hires a governess in the family of Viennese barons von Sutter and falls in love with the son of Baron Arthur, who was seven years younger than her. And at the moment when the governess is shamed out of the family with disgrace, she responds to an announcement in the newspaper given by a certain rich gentleman who is looking for a secretary owning foreign languages. This is how the young countess gets acquainted with one of the most important people in her life: the Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the future founder of the Nobel Prize.

Nobel took her to work as her assistant in 1873. After she broke up with her future husband - baron von Zutner, she went to Paris to Nobel. Nobel did not accidentally chose Bert: she was a perfectly educated woman, she knew many languages, their opinions coincided on many issues, which became clear even during their correspondence. But in Paris she did not stay long. Nobel left for Sweden, and Arthur Zutner wrote to her that he can not live without her. And she immediately returned to Vienna, combined with him a secret marriage, and they fled to the Caucasus together, where Bertha had connections. A few years later, the couple returned to Europe, and Bertha again resumed cooperation with Nobel. And he even financed the pacifist activities of her and her husband. They say that Alfred Nobel was in love with Bertha, but was refused. Anyway, after the return of the Baroness to Europe, her correspondence with the inventor of dynamite continues.

It was Berta Zutner who prompted Nobel that the prizes could be given not only for achievements in the field of exact sciences, but also for the fighters for peace. Indeed, in one of his letters the Swedish industrialist promises the Baroness to establish a prize for achievements in the field of peace consolidation. And it was this award in 1905 that was awarded to Bertha von Sutner herself. She became the first woman to become the winner of this award.

In 1891, she founded the first pacifist organization in Austria - the Austrian Society for Peace, with her participation, the Berne Peace Bureau was created, which coordinated the activities of pacifist groups that were established in many European countries. In 1899, as the first woman not representing a specific government, she took part in the organized by Nicholas II Hague Peace Conference.

Even during her life with her husband in the Caucasus, in Georgian Tiflis, Berta von Sutner first started writing - stories, essays, novels. Many of them were related to the military theme, since during their life in Georgia, Zutner's wife witnessed the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. The most famous book of the Baroness "Down with Arms!" Was published in 1889. She talked about a young woman whose fate was crippled by the European wars of the 1860s. Scenes of military violence shocked the reading public around the world. Leo Tolstoy compared the novel of Bertha Zutner with the book Harriet Beecher Stowe "Uncle Tom's Cabin".

What else was Baroness Zutner known? She advocated for women's rights, above all, for equal opportunities for education for men and women. In the US, it has become the idol of the women's movement. In addition, it is known that she sharply opposed anti-Semitism, in which it supported and Nobel. It is known that the Baroness used her connections with the Russian Emperor Nicholas II to help his friend, the founder of the World Zionist Organization, Theodor Herzl. And she was also a vegetarian.