He grew up in the village of Andrushivka in present Pohrebyshche Raion, Vinnytsia Oblast (province), where his father was a teacher.
[1] After studies at Uman Cooperative Technicum (Уманський кооперативний технікум) he started his career as a journalist in 1934 at Molodyi Bilshovyk (Молодий Бiльшовик) in Vinnytsia.
In 1939 he started to work at Vilna Ukraïna (Вільна Україна) and later at Leninska Molod (Ленінска Молодь) in Lviv.
[2] Valentyn remained in Ukraine also after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941.
[6] In one of his literary critiques of Mykhailo Stelmakh published in May 1972, Rechmedin noted: "The older generation sees itself in the heroes of Velyka ridnya, Krov lyudska - ne vodytsia, Pravda i Kryvda, Khlib i sil those who had their souls scarred with disaster, poverty, hard work and injustice.