In his largely entertaining and insightful book, Grandmasters of Chess Pulitzer prize winner and music critic/chess correspondent for the New York Times, Harold C Schonberg, tells us about the origin of the word grandmaster.
The title was formally conferred in Russia in 1914, at the great St Petersburg chess tournament by Tsar Nicholas 11. He named the five finalists of the St Petersburg tournament—Emanuel Lasker, Jose Raul Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Siegbert Tarrasch and Frank Marshall—grandmasters of chess.