WARSAW, Poland, June 6 (UPI) -- Works by Goethe, Kafka and Josef Conrad will remain on Polish schools' reading lists, surviving an effort to drop them for patriotic and Roman Catholic authors.
Poland's education minister had sought to replace the literary classic on school reading lists with nationalist and Catholic writers such as Henryk Sienkiewicz and Pope John Paul II, respectively, but was overruled by Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Der Spiegel reported Wednesday. The education minister said the revised list would help instill patriotism in Polish youth.
When Education Minister Roman Giertych, leader of the ultra-conservative League of Polish Families, announced his plan last year to cull the books from syllabi, parents, teachers and students joined others in denouncing the effort.
Kaczynski stepped in, saying in Polish radio this week, "Of course there will be no abolishing the classic Polish and foreign literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. The classics are staying."
