What are the legacies of defeat? This article examines the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), a rebel movement which fought a 27-year long civil war against the Angolan state until its military defeat in 2002, and traces its strategies of legitimisation during and after the war. Focusing on the alternative imaginary of the Nation upon which UNITA constructed its social base, I argue that the legacies of defeat depend on the ability of armed groups to keep alive the narratives that supported their struggle and articulate them with shifting local realities in the post-war environment.