Background
Bertha Von Suttner was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While she was broadly active in the peace movement (especially for a woman in the 19th century), the Nobel website specifically cites her book Lay Down Your Arms as a major factor in winning her the award. With that in mind I chose to add her to the Nobel FC roster. If you don’t like that…please write something…I’m afraid I’m a nutcase creating a truly bizarre alternate reality of soccer and books.
Anyway…back to Bertha. She grew up in Austria as the daughter of soldiers and nobility, which accounts for her liberty to read, write, and travel as a woman of leisure. However, she ultimately entered the workforce as a governess/tutor to another Austrian family with a long military pedigree. She later was briefly the secretary for Alfred Nobel, you know, they guy who founded all these prizes. She ultimately eloped with the son of her tutoring family (before you ask, no, this was not a Lifetime movie, he was never her tutee and was 23 when they met). And they lived apart from the family making ends meet through tutoring and freelance writing.
Eventually reunited with their Austrian family, Bertha found new work in advocating for peace. As the popularity of her other writing grew Bertha was invited to speak more frequently and when she published the novel that played a major part in winning the peace prize: Lay Down Your Arms which became a bit of a cultural craze in 1890s Europe. Bertha, who had already been active in the peace movement, became a leading figure (one called her The Generalissimo of Peace). She also travelled broadly in support of Women’s Rights (including speaking at a conference organized by a group that employed my favorite peace advocate…future Montana Congress Woman Jeanette Rankin)
Works
“Your ‘yes’ [vote for war] will rob that mother of her only child. Yours will put that poor fellow’s eyes out. Yours will set fire to a collection of books which cannot be replaced. Yours will dash out the brains of a poet who would have been the glory of his country. But you have all voted ‘yes’ to this, just in order not to appear cowards, as if the only thing one had to fear in giving assent was what regards onesself“
—Lay Down Your Arms
“The village is ours–no it is the enemy’s–now ours again–and yet once more the enemy’s; but it is no longer a village, but a smoking mass of the ruins of houses”
—Lay Down Your Arms
Message
Obviously, as a pacifist and an activist, Bertha had a clear moral she wanted to communicate to the masses. She also has a tendency to hammer on the same point and demolish the same straw men arguments with the fervor of a scarecrow demolition crew. Still, within her context it’s really worth considering Bertha’s specific position that expanded the peace debate, namely: war and violence spread destruction far beyond the battlefield. That seemingly simple fact is often ignored by those who valorize battle.
Position: #1 Goalkeeper
Bertha can easily be minimized as just a pacifist, but she does her very best to broaden her position and stands her ground against a much more aggressive opponent. To me, that’s a great synopsis of a goalkeeper’s duty. Her most acclaimed novel covers a lot of ground and refuses to let other opinions just slide by, so I’m going to put her between the posts and let her do her thing. (I’m also going to continue my Jeanette Rankin shoutouts by putting her in the Garnet and Silver of Montana…and I fully expect the Griz staff could make even a 180 year old Baroness an effective shot-stopper.)
So there’s a big shout out to Bertha, if you prefer her poetry or insist that she be moved to the attack, let me know in the comments below. Come on…for my sanity at least.
MacKenzie's Boot Room 