Periodic travelling waves are considered in the class of reduced Ostrovsky
equations that describe low-frequency internal waves in the presence of
rotation. The reduced Ostrovsky equations with either quadratic or cubic
nonlinearities can be transformed to integrable equations of the Klein--Gordon
type by means of a change of coordinates. By using the conserved momentum and
energy as well as an additional conserved quantity due to integrability, we
prove that small-amplitude periodic waves are orbitally stable with respect to
subharmonic perturbations, with period equal to an integer multiple of the
period of the wave. The proof is based on construction of a Lyapunov
functional, which is convex at the periodic wave and is conserved in the time
evolution. We also show numerically that convexity of the Lyapunov functional
holds for periodic waves of arbitrary amplitudes.Comment: 34 page