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There is not a contemporary society which is not multi-ethnic and multi-cultural in its base and structure. This fact derives from the period of the old-world empires: Ancient Macedonia, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia etc. These empires were spread over large territories, some even on different continents, and lasted for centuries. Various ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic groups were part of these empires. The survival of the empires mostly depended on an established unity among the various groups. For these reasons, they had to find appropriate mechanisms for regulating the already complex multi-ethnic relations.Contemporary multicultural societies face the same challenges: how to create coexistence among the various cultural and ethnic communities; how to create a feeling of mutual belonging in all members of the political community; how to fulfill all requests of cultural diversity; how to obtain a political unity; and how to preserve the society.Kew words: culture, cultural diversity, cultural identity, cultural rights, multicultural societies, coexistence, political unity, social integration.

It was hoped that the XXth and XXIst century will be celebrated for there alization of the long-awaited dream of a united Europe, but now it seems that those years will remain in the memory as the years of dramatic, often bitter disintegration and fragmentation. Today, around the world, there is a real outbreak of armed civil or international conflicts spurred by strong currents of aggressive ethnic nationalism - often thought to be "internal", but can quickly expand beyond the boundaries of the nation's state. The international community has begun to realize the potential seriousness of these various conflicts. A conflict is a constant content of the social existence at various levels. As a phenomenon which represents destructive behavior including violence, conflict is defined as "a dynamic phenomenon, a manifested conflicting process composed of stages of initiation, escalation, controlled maintenance, silencing and dismissal." Conflict theorists stress the importance of "chronic" or "deep-rooted conflict", which is transferred from one generation to another, because it penetrates into the psychological needs for personal identity and security, to belong to a group and for (self) respect. The world scientific society is preoccupied trying to explain the phenomenon of ethnic conflicts and the new forms of inter-ethnic relations, which are becoming a potential threat to democracy and world peace. United Nations (UNCHR, 2002) believe that "ethnic" conflicts are a dominant form of antagonisms, contradiction and riots in the twentieth century.