entuziast

[Michele A Berdy]

This is probably not very helpful, but:
The Tolkovi slovar' yazyka Sovdepii, which has decent definitions and 
sometimes good illustrative quotes, unfortunately does not date the quotes 
or cite time periods for usage. It has entuziast in the sense of "someone 
acting with enthusiasm (building socialism)" with quotes from Gorky and 
the song Marsh Entuziastov (from the film Traktoristy, 1938).  

The wonderful Yazyk revoliutsionnoi epokhi by Selishchev, a reprint 
edition of a work that looks at language changes 1917-1926, doesn't 
mention it all. That, of course, doesn't prove anything, but it might mean 
that the "builder of socialism" usage came a bit later.  

Just for the heck of it I ran "entuziast" through the search engine of a 
disc of Russian literatue, and it pops up in Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, 
Turgenev, Hertzen, Platonov and a few others, though the sense is 
not "revolutionary" except in Bulgakov (although you'd have to check that -
- I was flying through). 

BTW, the Selishchev book is a gem.  My favorite part is a section on the 
understanding of "new words" in rural areas, in which they asked people in 
a Yaroslavl' village to define "Soviet words (in 1925).  Their answers are 
presented with their pronunciation: "Mars, Karlo-Mars: eto kak 
Lenin"  "Mil'en, mil'yard: den'ga bumazhnaya"; Yelegatka -- eto bab na 
sobranie vybiraiut"; Deklet -- eto praviltel'stvo bumagi pishet." My 
favorite: Nalog - eto poprezhnemu obrok."  And much more like this.  

  
 

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