Voldemort's reign for the most part seems to have been focused on British Isles. Why would someone like Karkaroff, who is a headmaster of a school located in northern Europe, want to be his follower?
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Very good question – Sep 18 '15 at 20:20
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1The same reason there are neo-nazis in America. – Rogue Jedi Sep 18 '15 at 20:22
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He's from a cold and boring area... what else did he have to do? – Ryan Sep 18 '15 at 20:24
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6Was Karkaroff the headmaster of Durmstrang at the time he was a Death Eater, or was that a later career move? – Rand al'Thor Sep 18 '15 at 20:46
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I think you have it the wrong way around. Karkaroff didn’t come to Britain from northern Europe; he fled there after the war.
It’s not confirmed in canon, but it seems pretty likely that Karkaroff became headmaster of Durmstrang after his spell in Azkaban. It seems exceptionally unlikely that he would have been able to return to his post if he’d been headmaster before the war – criminal charges aside, the school would have replaced him, and why unseat his replacement?
So he must have had some ties to Britain – the details are unknown – that meant he became a Death Eater.
After the war, he turned in a lot of other Death Eaters:
“He did a deal with the Ministry of Magic,” said Sirius bitterly. “He said he’d seen the error of his ways, and then he named names… he put a load of other people into Azkaban in his place…. He’s not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since he got out, from what I can tell, he’s been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well.”
— Goblet of Fire, chapter 19 (The Hungarian Horntail)
That alone would give him a good reason to flee Britain – if those people ever escape Azkaban, he’ll be high on their target list. Durmstrang is an attractive retreat: the magical schools are all well-defended to keep out foreigners and spies, and he can gain influence and followers among his students. He didn’t teach them the Dark Arts for giggles.
It was just unfortunate for him that he was in Britain when Voldemort returned to power. Had he been holed up in Durmstrang, he’d probably have been quite safe.
alexwlchan
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Directly from the wiki....At some point after his release from Azkaban, Karkaroff became Headmaster of Durmstrang Institute. – Tdmut Sep 18 '15 at 21:02
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Then we're free to assume he's originally from Britain? It also mystifies me that all these Bulgarian people keep their school in Scandinavia. (Apparently according to Pottermore both the first and the second headmaster of Durmstrang were Bulgarian.) – user53238 Sep 18 '15 at 21:04
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2@user53238 Nah, I'm pretty sure he has a strong accent and isn't from Britain, but he could've been living in Britain at the time of Voldemort's first rise to power. – Rand al'Thor Sep 18 '15 at 21:04
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1@randal'thor Considering that the accents of Victor Krum, Fleur Delacour, and Mme Maxime (as well as Hagrid, of course) are quite consistently rendered as accents in the books, whereas Karkaroff’s speech is rendered in perfectly bog-standard English, I'd say there's a good chance Karkaroff is actually meant to be British (of some type of Slavic ancestry) originally. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 18 '15 at 21:17
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2@JanusBahsJacquet Let's find out! http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/103173/where-was-igor-karkaroff-originally-from – Rand al'Thor Sep 19 '15 at 00:05