The Berezil Theatre (1922–1933) was an avant-garde Soviet Ukrainian national theatre troupe, and "the largest state-funded theater in Soviet Ukraine." Founded by Les Kurbas, who was considered the greatest theater director of the 20th century, the theatre was named for March, the first month of spring in Ukrainian and a period identified with renewal, an approach Kurbas "intertwined with Impressionism, Symbolism, and the experimental." "The overarching goal of Berezil's productions," he said, "was the synthesis of speech, movement, gesture, music, light, and decorative art into one rhythm or simple, dramatic language, based on the belief that theater shapes rather than reflects life." In 1920, he summarized a successful performance by saying: "There were those who cried for us. There were those who thought that only our performances made them conscious Ukrainians."