When a revolution ends in military defeat and repression, what possibilities exist under hostile authoritarianism for the unofficial commemoration of former revolutionaries? When unofficial commemoration emerges, what are the consequences of performing it, and acknowledging it, for understanding both commemoration and contested political identities? In the Sultanate of Oman, where a colonially-backed counterinsurgency defeated Dhufar’s revolution (1965-76), official silence has hung since then over episodes of past insurrection, including the Dhufar revolution. Meanwhile, official commemoration in the country is sultan-centric. Despite official silence about Oman’s revolutionary past, critical re-interpretation of historical sources, paired with ethnographic fieldwork among Dhufar’s former revolutionaries forty years after their military defeat, traces counterhistories that challenge conventional histories and narratives. Many Dhufaris, it transpires, first experienced state-led commemoration under Dhufar’s liberation movement and its commemorative activities. Explanations of the post-1970 rise of Oman’s sultan-centric commemorative culture should therefore address the contributing pressures of the Front’s earlier commemorative culture. The Sultan’s government strove to overcome its rival in the field of commemoration. After the liberation movement’s dissolution, Dhufaris tracing revolutionary histories generated alternative, new resources for the unofficial commemoration of the revolution. These range from everyday experiences of space, written and oral texts, jokes, euphemisms, funerals, and ritual hosting for former revolutionaries. In the context of Omani authoritarianism, quotidian forms of unofficial commemoration were necessarily subtle. This creates questions, rather than certainty, about the kinds of identities and solidarities that unofficial commemoration generates. However ambiguous its implications for identities, loyalties, or resistances, unofficial commemoration nevertheless illuminates the commemorative “wake work” (Sharpe 2016) of revolutionary afterlives. Unofficial commemoration creates possibilities for passing on to future generations knowledge and appreciation of an officially silenced revolutionary past. In doing so, unofficial commemoration contributes significantly to the work of providing resources for imagining alternative futures.