War and Peace is perhaps not such a good example. There are several 'original' versions of the book in Russian, so you would need to make sure the translator used the same version as the one you are comparing to. Also, having been published almost 150 years ago, War and Peace may not be the perfect example of 'modern' language.
But anyway, interesting idea, to compare the length of languages. I'll be interested to see the outcome.
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