ABSTRACT
The Austrian writer and peace activist Bertha von Suttner (1843—1914) has been variously described as a 'prototypical European', 1 as 'Europe's Cassandra', 2 and, in her own era, as 'wohl [. . .] der umfassendste, universellste Kopf unter den schreibenden Frauen'. 3 Suttner became the first female winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905, but the bestselling novel that propelled its author to a position of international influence is today largely forgotten, dismissed as a product of its age without lasting literary merit. From the outset Die Waffen nieder! (1889) was a problematic text. 'Große Kreise unserer Leser würden sich durch den Inhalt verletzt fühlen', 4 wrote the editor of one periodical to which Suttner submitted the manuscript, and numerous further rejection letters followed, one of which asserted that it was 'ganz ausgeschlossen, daß der Roman in einem Militärstaat veröffentlicht werde'. 5 Such a response is hardly surprising, given the work's resolutely pacifist stance at a time when Europe's most powerful states were spending substantial sums on weaponry and notions of military heroism and of the political inevitability of war still abounded. But Suttner's original intention to write this story 'um der Friedensbewegung [. . .] einen Dienst zu leisten' 6 had by her own admission drawn her irresistibly into an all-embracing commitment to the cause of peace, and she would not be cowed by fear of opposition or censorship. Her tenacity was rewarded when the Dresden publisher Edgar Pierson agreed to take the novel, despite her refusal to act on his strong advice to make certain changes, in particular to the title.
